Carmen
Bizet
Opera Holland Park
Tom Sutcliffe
14th June 2001
The Opera Holland Park season opened on Tuesday with Carmen, all of it, which is refreshing at a time when managements see fit to hack the work about and cut it down to whatever size and shape suits them. There was an irresistibly bumptious children’s chorus in the first and last acts that practically stole the show, and the company even performed one or two short passages that Bizet himself cut, definitely a fault in the right direction.
Money is short in Holland Park, and in that context Will Bowen’s permanent set is little short of masterly: a bit of camouflage netting replaced by brightly coloured streamers does the trick for taking us from the smugglers’ hideout to the bullring in Seville in a matter of seconds. The action is set in the present day, though it’s hard to say exactly where.
Graffiti on stage hints at Central America, but acres of pale flesh and the fact that practically everyone on stage happens to be fair – no money for body make-up or wigs – suggests Reigate. The ladies’ frocks were inescapably Home Counties. No matter given Jamie Hayes’s lively, “honest” production. There was no heavy breathing, rather recognition that Carmen is a West End musical before its time, one that goes a bit wrong in the last act: Hayes caught just the right lightly humorous tone. Nicholas Garrett’s chain-smoking Toreador was wonderfully fatuous, and he has the voice for this tricky role as well.
Geraint Dodd was excellent as José, and Louise Innes made a light Carmen in every sense: her mezzo is Mozartian in scale, and she never pushed it into chesty effects beyond her range, contenting herself with singing both musically and wittily. Her French was recognisable, but of all the cast only Jochem van Ast (Dancairo) sounded really at home in the language. The dialogue, craftily cut to essentials, was given in English.
The conductor John Gibbons, in charge of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, erred on the side of caution; his tempos could be described as steady or sluggish, depending on one’s mood. But just hearing Bizet’s masterpiece puts me in a very good mood indeed. An unpretentious, enjoyable evening, one that I hope diverted Michael Portillo (having a night off) as much as it did me.
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Carmen
Bizet
Opera Holland Park
Tom Sutcliffe
14th June 2001
Holland Park Opera’s untidy but enjoyable Carmen is the real, unexpurgated thing – though it seems to be set on Ibiza this very summer as a sort of Big Brother annexe. Jamie Hayes’s lively staging uses a cast of thousands, including irrepressibly raucous children. The singing is in French, the dialogue in English, a bizarre convention that spoils nobody’s enjoyment. The chorus is very lively.
The bullfight carnival has a few tremendous acrobats. There are no weak links in the line-up. Louise Innes’s good-looking Carmen sings powerfully and agreeably, with lots of presence. Geraint Dodd’s rough but convincing Jose works up terrific passion and gloom. Nicholas Garrett is suave and persuasive as Escamillo. The sound is weightier, the ensemble more powerful. John Gibbons, conducting, ties up this conventionally efficient package with crisp sensitivity and assured stylishness.
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