Chorégies d'Orange, 11/07/2015

Bizet : Carmen

Choeurs d'Anger-Nantes Opéra
Choeur de l'Opéra Grand-Avignon
Choeur de l'Opéra de Nice
Maîtrise des Bouches-du-Rhône
Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France
Mikko Franck
Operatic productions at the Chorégies d'Orange can be a bit of a hit-or-miss affair.  They're rarely very refined - the venue doesn't lend itself too well to a great deal of subtlety, on the whole - and sometimes the weather adds its tuppence worth, and I'm not talking about the obvious, an evening being rained out, but the notorious Mistral wind, through which both performers and audience usually persevere.  However, there are nights (and there have been many) when something like a state of grace occurs, and the evening becomes one of those enduring memories you cherish for a lifetime.  I was hoping this Carmen might be one such, especially with Jonas Kaufmann headlining the cast, but it was not to be.

That's no reflection on Kaufmann.  He was about as good as it gets as Don José, unafraid to use the full dynamic range of his voice in that big, open space, trusting the wall to reflect it faithfully back to the audience, which it did, and delivering a dramatic performance as accomplished as the vocal one.  Here was a Flower Song with the top B-flat on "Et j'étais une chose à toi" perfectly sung pianissimo, as Bizet required, which nine out of ten tenors cannot or do not dare undertake, and there were no useless histrionics in his playing.  By the end, it was clear that this Don José was a man constantly at war with himself, struggling to maintain a control so tight it has almost crippled him spiritually and emotionally, until Carmen cracks him open, with fatal results.  From the tiny tremor in one hand as he tries to ignore her teasing Seguidilla in the first Act, to the uncoiling spring of the final duet, Kaufmann managed to bring as much subtlety to bear as this venue can handle in his interpretation, and the voice, with its distinctive, bronzed timbre, was a pleasure to hear from start to finish.

A pity, then, that the frame for this gem of a performance was not up to the same standard.  I can understand the director Louis Désiré's wish to avoid the picture postcard aspects that are so tempting when staging Carmen, but he kind of threw the baby out with the bathwater in doing so.  There was little that was overtly Spanish, the costumes were quite handsome but extremely sober, and the choruses just seemed like blocks, placed as and where required and then left there to sing, which they did rather well, fortunately.  Most of all, there was no sensuality in this production, and the only idea running as a thread throughout was that destiny is ineluctable.  The decor (also by Désiré, as were the costumes) showed a giant pack of cards scattered across the stage, and anytime the chorus was on stage without actually singing, they were playing cards.  If there was anything else Désiré wanted to say, it didn't come across to me, and anything else I got from the staging came from the performers - and mostly Kaufmann - themselves.

Kate Aldrich again gave me rather the same neutral impression she had in Les Contes d'Hoffmann from Paris a couple of years ago; a good voice, and she's a physically convincing Carmen (imagine something a bit like Sigourney Weaver twenty years ago), but it was all rather superficial.  The one point where she might have convinced us otherwise, the Card Song, was turned into a grandstanding public declaration by the director, which rather defeated the purpose, I thought.  Kyle Ketelson sang Escamillo, also rather neutrally in his Act 2 song, but better later on, with more character showing through, and his French is outstanding, all the more remarkable as both Kaufmann and Aldrich were also producing very good French.  Why Escamillo was made to appear barefoot in his bullring costume completely escapes me.  Inva Mula, who was the only Chorégies regular in this production (she's been appearing here since 2003) was the weakest of the principal quartet.  Her Micaëla was the classic milquetoast version that one never wants to see, her vibrato is becoming obtrusive, and the vocal line a little uneven in places.  In her Act 3 aria, the character expresses her fear, but you don't actually want to hear any tremulousness in the voice, which we unfortunately did here.

L to R : Jonas Kaufmann, Kate Aldrich, Kyle Ketelson
Théâtre Antique d'Orange, 11/07/2015
(© the author, 2015)

On the other hand, most of the secondary roles were very strongly cast, starting with the cheerfully brazen Moralès of Armando Noguera, promptly followed by a resonant Zuniga from Jean Teitgen (who sounded like he might have been as good a candidate for Escamillo as Ketelson).  Marie Karall's Mercédès was a trifle hooting for my taste, but still good, while Hélène Guilmette brought real sparkle to Frasquita.  Olivier Grand (Le Dancaïre) and Florian Laconi (Le Remendado) also produced soundly sung and dramatically credible performances.

The orchestra tonight was the same as last night, but this time under their Musical Director Designate, the Finnish conductor Mikko Franck.  While the playing was generally good, and the balance and timing between stage and pit well controlled, the overall impression lacked the verve and zest of the concert conducted by Myung-Whun Chung.  Carmen is a dangerous opera in many respects, and primarily because it's so popular that it's easy to take for granted.  Seeking effects for effects' sake is not usually advisable, but it is possible to bring much more to this very familiar score than we heard tonight.  Not an evening for the anthologies, therefore, but one performance certainly qualified - Jonas Kaufmann's Don José.

[Next : 6th August]