Carmen, Opera North review - humanity and no bull

Is Bizet’s Carmen all about Carmen? Or Don José and his obsession with her? Or the society that made her what she is? Or all of the above? Inevitably it’s an opera that almost never escapes some Regietheater treatment these days. Director Edward Dick’s take on it is definitely one of those, and tries to tackle as many of the issues as it can.

Change of time, change of place. It’s set in “a small border town”, presumably somewhere in the Americas, and the costuming tells us we’re in the late 1950s or early Sixties. There’s no cigarette factory, though lots of smoking, so at least the references to cigs still make sense. There’s no bullfight, but Escamillo is a celebrity rodeo rider and that’s the core of the big off-stage event in the last act.

All of acts one and two take place in Pastia’s bar – a place with its own performing “girls”, who are thus seen as they appear both in front of the baying and lustful male customers – mainly soldiery – and backstage, where we realise they’re really just women doing a job and they have families. The smuggling (drugs, of course) is straightforward enough in these circumstances.

This is Opera North: very keen to make a welcome comeback to the normal stage and with the resources to do it on a pretty lavish scale. The opera also happens to be Garry Walker’s first production as the company’s music director. He needn’t have had any worries about his role as conductor in the pit, as the music is lovingly and glowingly handled and the orchestra plays for him superbly.

As with many Opera North productions in recent years, the casting is partly from the company’s chorus, which as so often before provides excellent character acting from its own ranks, partly from regular guest artists, plus some key roles from young actor-singers making their debuts with the company. In this case the female roles seem to be somewhat better filled than the male, though no one could be described as a weak link – there’s too much care in preparation for that ever to be true of this company.

Carmen makes her first appearance in the bar/club from on high via a harnessed suspended chair (and with a kind of phoney Spanish head-dress that doesn’t last long but is I think meant to suggest that her alternative name of La Carmenćita is a performing persona – i.e. not the real, human Carmen who emerges after the first act). Chrystal E. Williams (pictured with Erin Caves as Don José) enters into this interpretation, her role debut, of the character with conviction and enthusiasm, and her vocal power and tonal quality are never in doubt. While Camila Titinger’s Micaëla doesn’t have the same opportunities for developing a portrayal (she’s pregnant with Don José’s child in this production, which is presumably designed to set him in a bad light from the outset but fights against the wording of the dialogue somewhat), her singing is pure and sweet and earned her spontaneous applause for her act three aria.

Amy Freston as Frasquita and Helen Évora as Mercedes give individuality to their parts in the story and pull their weight in the ensembles with credit.

Erin Caves as Don José seemed to make an unsure beginning – perhaps deliberately – but by the final act was firing on all cylinders in projection as well as characterisation. To a great extent the piece itself just takes over here, as the fated relationship builds to its tragic climax. And Phillip Rhodes has all the stage presence needed for a macho Escamillo but came over just a little under-powered – even though I rather liked his Elvis-style delivery of the Toreador’s Song.

In the end, Carmen without corrida seems somewhat bloodless,  metaphorically as well as in the obvious way (you lose the parallel of the sacrifice of a life in the arena off-stage as another is ended before you), and though I can see it needs some kind of fresh thinking to present it for our own times, I can’t help thinking that it’s Don José’s disintegration that should engage us as much as Carmen’s search for “freedom”.

• Repeated at The Lowry on Friday 12 November and at Nottingham Theatre Royal on 17 and 19 November  (conducted in Nottingham by Harry Sever)

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