Calixto Bieito Carmen, ENO

Everyone knows Carmen, or thinks that they do, which is not always the same thing.  Carmen smokes and sleeps with whom she wants, and cannot be constrained unless she wants to be. The Carmen archetype is so powerful that she's inspired countless reworkings, bringing out different aspects of the meme. Calixto Bieito's celebrated production of Bizet's Carmen, now at the ENO, is an excellent oportunity to reconnect with the fundamental human drama

Bieito is Spanish, and his Barcelona production was geared towards Spanish sensibilities. Catalunians think of themselves as distinct from Spain. The first flag we see is t la Rojigualda with the royal crest. Later we see the same colours with the image of a bull emblazoned. Obviously, Escamillo is a toreador. But the image goes far deeper. The silhouette bull we see is  the ubiquitous Osborne Bull that dots the Spanish landscape. To many it's a symbol of foreign economic domination: to Catalunians, it's a reminder that their region is controlled by Spain. Although Carmen the opera is associated with Spain, Carmen isn't Spanish but a gypsy. Her people obey no state, and observe no borders. 

The first scene is set in a military camp. The soldiers look strong and virile, but they're brutalized into conformity. Recalcitrants are punished, even by death. Duncan Rock looks god-like as Morales, but we know he's just a corporal who could be sacrificed as fodder. He's like the bull who must kill or be killed.  The crowd secenes are well choreographed. In their uniforms, men and women move like parts of  a machine. Only the children remain wild and free. When Carmen becomes Escamillo's consort, she seems poised to join polite society, but then she's killed.

Ruxandra Donose is superlative as Carmen. Concepción in Ravel's L'heure espagnole is one of  her  signature roles, which she's done at the Royal Opera House and at the Barbican.  Her voice is rich, with a lustrous smoky quality, which adds depth and mystery.  This is especially important in Carmen who carries the whole opera. In Barcelona, Erwin Schrott, Roberto Alagna and Marina Poplavskaya were superlative, comensating for a relatively weak Carmen.  In London, most of the cast comes from the usual ENO milieu. Without Donose, the performance would have been much less satisfying.

Donose creates an intelligent Carmen who negotiates her way through difficult situations. The Habanera is her calling card, advertising her image as seductress, but sexuality is a means to an end.  Perhaps Carmen wants love, but she's too realistic to expect miracles. When the smugglers bring out flamenco dresses from their loot, all three women think it's degrading. These are just cheap  costumes. What they really want is to move ahead, but they haven't the means. Donose's Carmen has a natural elegance which suggests that higher aspirations may be within her reach. Her singing is sensual but never vulgar. She's blonde, but her voice creates the "dark eyes" in the text, coloured by emotional depth.

Don José scatters the contents of Carmen's nice new handbag to demean her. Donose crawls on the ground, desperately trying to pick up the fragments. Her voice becomes almost fragile, yet she doesn't capitulate. This subtle portrayal develops Carmen as a sympathetic human being, far deeper than the slattern society assumes she must be. Donose's Carmen is genuinely truly tragic because she is no caricature, but a good woman crushed just when she might be reaching her dreams.

Bieito's staging suggests the open countryside where a "child of liberty" might roam free. Lilas Pastia (Dean Street) and the smugglers meet in the open air, just as people do in hot countries like Spain.  When Escamillo (Leigh Melrose) and Don José (Adam Diegel) fight they jump on old cars as if they were mountain rocks. In the Barcelona original, Bieito drew parallels with the way tourism despoiled the Spanish countryside and national culture. For London, that had to be moderated for obvious reasons, so all we got this time was a woman in a bikini and other tourists singing about Butlins (not Benidorm as far as I recall). The perils of opera in English!

More effectively, Bieito builds his staging on an acute understanding of Bizet's music. We see Escamillo as toreador only briefly. It's his job, not his normal world. The toreador songs are heard from a distance for the same reason: they are colourful illusion, not reality. Carmen is completely alone when she confronts José. They face each other in a circle on what looks like clay. In this corrida, they are the real Bull and Bullfighter.

Ryan Wigglesworth conducted the ENO Orchestra. He is an elegant conductor whose clarity works well in modern music. In Bizet, he could do with a bit more low down and dirty, for the story is horrible, and the charms of the music need context to give them bite. Elizabeth Llewellyn has a big following who greeted her long aria with deserved applause. Beautiful singing, but not the grittiness of Poplavskaya's Micaëla. But then she doesn't get paid as much. Madeleine Shaw (Mercédès) and Rhian Lois (Frasquita) were vividly defined, though the part of the young daughter, so well developed in Barcelona, had less impact. Graeme Danby sang Zuniga. José lies rather too high for Adam Diegel though he lasted the long role well. While Donose's Romanian accent gave her Carmen an exotic edge, Diegel's American accent was disconcerting. Leigh Melrose's Escamillo didn't cut quite as much of a dash as some Escamillos do, even when their singing isn't as steady. Very few could  manage the sheer animal magnetism of Erwin Schrott in the role in Barcelona. But while the ENO sticks to its policy of English language productions, few singers will take the trouble to relearn their parts in the vernacular. 
photo : Ruxandra Donose, credit Nikolaus Karlinksy

First Habanera recording 1891

My friend and regular reader has written about the first ever recording of Bizet's Carmen Habanera. It was made in 1891 by Julius Block , a businessman who bought a phonograph off Thomas Edison. This was way before the concept of commercial recording developed.  But fashionable, well-heeled people were fascinated by the novelty. When Block demonstrated the phonograph to the Tsar, the Tsar bought one too. Block persuaded the big stars of the day to play and sing for him. Block's wax cylinders were long thought missing but Ward Marston has cleaned them up and made them available on CD. (read more here)

The first Habanera recording was made with Italian mezzo Adele Borghi (b 1860). The recording lasts 1.33 so isn't complete, but the wonder is that it exists at all. Carmen was "new music" at the time, probably quite racy stuff. Borghi's recording was made only 16 years after the premiere. It's interesting that 19th century people didn't have hang-ups about "traditional" or "conservative" music. Once Carmen caught on, it became a classic. What's more people of the time were sufficiently technology-friendly to experiment with the latest inventions.

The photo shows Emma Calvé as Carmen with her arms uncovered, smoking a cigarette and looking provocative. Calvé also recorded the Habanera, in 1902. In 1905, Jeanne Marie de L'Isle made another recording. Her aunt and teacher was Célestine Galli-Marié, Bizet's first Carmen. Listen HERE for Calvé and HERE for de L'Isle.

Is Film changing Opera?

Is film changing opera? No doubt that Jeremiahs moaned when operas began to be heard on the radio and Heavens Above! on recordings when technology was so limited that sound was distorted and only a few minutes could be made at any time. Jeremiahs would be well advised to complain about even newer technologies, like MP3's, which also shrink the live experience. It's not film that will change opera, but the way film is used.

There's an article in the New York Times which is worth reading although it's quite flawed. It's irrelevant, for example, whether Satyagraha drew tiny audiences in Wichita, Kansas, because it was a film. Quite likely Wichita audiences don't do Philip Glass anyhow, so it's  a bad analogy. And that Satyagraha staging was designed as a theatre experience. It was so successful as theatre that even those who'd steer clear of Glass went and enjoyed. (Read more about it here and here). It was brilliant because it was created by people with theatre, circus and puppetry skills, opening out whole new territory for opera staging.  La Fura dels Baus, for example, create equally innovative stagings that open out whole new possibilties of expression. Their Le Grand Macabre (more here) interpreted Ligeti's meaning better than his music alone..So kaput to the theory that operas are now designed for film. Not the good ones, anyway.

Peter Gelb is right, though that might pain some to accept. The simple fact is that good directors create productions based on what the opera and the music tells them. Sure, they are aware that some aspects will film better than others but their primary job is to express what's in the opera. It's the film director who decides what happens in the film. Filming opera is a whole new art, which requires not only a good knowledge of music but also sensitivity to what the stage director, singers and conductor are doing with the opera. Some directors, like Brian Large, are so good that they can make stinkers of productions look good. He's effective because it's his job to focus on how things translate through the camera. It's never enough to simply "film" without proper direction. And he was around long before HD.

Theatre is not reality. Movies condition us to think they're facsimiles of life, but they aren't reality either. Maybe one day, someone will figure out how to make operas "real" but that might mean creating new operas entirely.  Operas are often most effective when they're deliberately "art". One of the finest theatrre experiences I've ever had was Glyndebourne's Purcell The Fairy Queen. It was absolutely true to baroque convention, which made a virtue of extravagant unreality. At the end, rose petals fluttered down from the ceiling, connecting audience with players on stage (read more here)  Get to Glyndebourne this summer to experience it live, because the DVD is almost unwatchable. It's filmed so literally that it might as well have been done by a mobile phone. Millions are spent of producing an opera. So why stint when it comes to filming it for the millions who will never get to see it live? Especially as DVD/HD is where the money is coming in from.

Film is never going to be the same as live, but then neither is recording. So what if voices are better balanced on broadcast than live? Sometimes the finest voices aren't big. It's much better that audiences learn to listen to quality than sheer volume, however much that impresses non-musical audiences. We listen to studio recordings, so why should filmed opera be any different? Sensitive listeners also hear the nuances in good singing more than most people realize. In the past, opera houses were not gigantic barns like the Met, so, arguably, the big voices and styles favoured in houses like that aren't necessarily the best for good music. That's why a Lieder background is good for understanding  opera, but not necessarily the other way round. You hear the close-ups as well as see them. The medium is not the message. The audience should be engaging with an opera as opera, not just "watching the movie".

That's the real danger of filmed opera : audience expectations. Two years ago, Johann Botha sang an inspired Tannhäuser at the Royal Opera House (review here) but did many in the audience appreciate his  singing? "Elisabeth should have chosen Wolfram!" some said, completely ignoring the opera. Elisabeth loved Tannhäuser because he wasn't a plaster saint, but had lived. Too well, perhaps, but that's exactly what Wagner meant. Better an unattractive singer any day than a media-created pretty boy hero who looks good  but can't actually sing. Publicity departments can create overnight sensations out of last choice singers because audiences judge by appearance, not by art. Good directors - and good audiences - can work around interesting singers. Ben Heppner may be on the old side for Tristan, but he can create the part showing why the character is world-weary. Even Siegfried doesn't have to be a babe. Think of the Tristans and Tannhäusers of the past. That's Melchior squeezing into a girdle. Don't even think about Wagner's singers, who'd be booed off stage today. Are modern audiences so gullible that they forsake art for image?

In any case it's not Met HD that's changing opera. Opera movies have been with us a long, long time. Remember De Mille's 1915 Carmen, Ernst Lubitsch's 1919 Gypsy Blood and Charlie Chaplin's 1915 Burlesque on Carmen here.  Anyone who whines about Bizet's Carmen in 3D is a fool. The sky is not going to fall! (more here). Opera movies go back a long way, and have always reached more general audiences. There's even a 1905 film of Chinese opera (silent and in fragments). Think of the wild mix of Carmen and The Flying Dutchman starring Ava Gardner stark naked. (read more here) These of course aren't films of opera (some are silent) but filmed opera isn't new. Someone once told me "Europeans know nothing about opera", which reflects the extreme parochialism in some circles. The mere mention of Germans sends some people into a rage. But look out for the Hamburg State Opera series of filmed operas made for German TV in 1967-1970. I've written about their Weber's Der Freischütz (here) but their film of Alban Berg Wozzeck is infinitely better, filmed on location in a fortress in the North German marshes. (Read about it here). Now that is how opera can be filmed, true to the music, true to film. Then there are the two Verdi blockbusters, filmed in real time on location, the 1976 Tosca in Rome, and the RAI Rigoletto in Mantua (more here)  with Placido Domingo.  Realistically, it isn't going to happen too often because of cost. But filmed opera is the way forward, and it's a subject that needs to thoroughly addressed, and not just in terms of the Met and its market. 

 

The Flying Dutchman - Ava Gardner?

Wagner Der fliegende Hollander starts tonight at the Royal Opera House. (Please see my review HERE) But here's another Flying Dutchman but not as we'd know it. The music isn't Richard Wagner but Alan Rawsthorne, a combination of lurid technicolor and stiff upper lipped Britishness.

What's more the Senta character is Ava Gardner, and she gets to sing the arias, too. Indeed, she plays the Dutchman as well, wandering through life unable to love, though her beauty drives men mad. "The measure of love is what one is prepared to give up for it". So a man throws his precious racing car over a cliff, another committs suicide. But she doesn't care.

This Flying Dutchman is set in sunny Spain, so the film can work in a long, implausible reference to Carmen and matadors. Spain is also warm enough that Ava gets to swim stark naked out to the mystrerious yacht in the bay. Onboard she meets The Dutchman, who paints portraits instead of being in one. He paints her! It's James Mason. Bizarrely, the Daland character is an archeaologist who's found a manuscript supposedly written by the real Flying Dutchman in the 17th century, who killed his wife (Ava) thinking she was unfaithful. Hence the curse.

Then the movie turns from Wagner to Carmen. Montalvo the matador is Ava/Senta/Carmen/Pandora's ex, so we get to watch a long drawn out scene in the bullring, where he gets killed, not Carmen. Montalvo had tried to kill the Dutchman, so he's Escamillo and Don José in one. Meanwhile Ava/Pandora/Senta realizes that she loves the Dutchman so much that she'll give up her life for him. She dumps the Erik character (the racing driver) she's about to marry and swims out to the yacht. That night, a demonic storm. Next morning, two bodies wash up on the beach.

Interestingly, this movie was made just before Ava Gardner became a major star. She was a Southern belle, but dusky enough to play exotic characters rather than the Bette Davis type. Rumour has it that Ava passed for white, but wasn't. Hooray again for people who break out of racial stereotypes!

Chinese Carmen - The Wild, Wild Rose Grace Chang

 Wang Tian-lin's The Wild Wild Rose (野玫瑰之戀) (1960) is a very important film because it adapts Bizet's Carmen to make extremely pointed commentary on Chinese values at a time of great upheaval in Chinese society. It's set in Hong Kong, a city where everyone was a refugee, even the local born. Millions of people had been dislocated in China after decades of war and chaos. Like many films at that time, The Wild, Wild Rose begins with shots of neon lights and glittering nightlife, symbolizing prosperity. But this hedonism unfolds against a background of extreme suffering and deprivation. Understanding this context is fundamental to a deeper reading of the film.

The Wild, Wild Rose stars Grace Chang (Ge Lan 葛蘭) as Deng Sijia, a charismatic nightclub singer. Significantly, she's by no means a typical chanteuse. She has complete artistic control over what she does and uses her act to make statements. She's individualistic and feisty, "wild", a rose with thorns. But her fans adorte her. "I like noisy women", says one man, "they aren't boring". Not quite the typical model of a Nice Chinese Maiden.

In one scene, the commotion Sijia's act raises draws the customers away from the nightclub next door. The other nightclub features the kind of westernized crooner complete with "jazz band", that was the norm in cities like Shanghai and Hong Kong as early as the 1920's. These clubs were a means through which those who had money could display their wealth and sophisticated taste. The point this film is making, though, is that the musical fare was ersatz. Sijia's nightclub stands for artistic integrity.

Liang Hanhua (Yang Chang) takes a job as nightclub pianist. He trained  as a classical musician, and despises "nightclub" people". He represents the old scholar class who disdained the world of merchants the nightclub patrons come from. Old money and education, however, mean nothing now that war and dislocation have wrecked traditional values. Throughout the film, there are allusions to class, status and social mores, which Sijia challenges. Everyone's living on the edge. Sudden reversals of fate, poverty and wealth, just as in real life Hong Kong and in China for the last 100 years. The nightclub is a microcosm of society, where callousness destroys people. The old pianist Old Wang (Lei da) is kicked out of work because he's late. He's late because his wife is dying and he can't afford medicine. Maybe he, too, was a classical pianist, but now he lives in a squalid cubicle with three screaming kids.  In those days apartments didn't have rooms, people rented floor space cordoned off by boards. Communal living, but in an urban setting. Liang feels guilt about displacing Old Wang but there's nothing he can do.

Deng Sijia as the Carmen archetype shakes up all assumptions. Obviously, sexuality comes into the mix, because Ge Lan is gorgeous. She hands Liang a score. "You can't sing this" he says, because he knows La donna è mobile should be sung by The Duke in Rigoletto. But Deng understands its meaning. She overturns the Duke's refusal to accept responsibility for his actions. Women are fickle, she implies, because they can't depend on men. She's dressed as Escamillo in cape and toreador hat. Later she appears in a man's flamenco costume, wearing tight pants with buttons up to her waist. Gender stereotypes are shattered.

When Deng Sijia sings the Habanera, it's a glorious shout of liberation. "Love is an illusion" she sings, "I have fun with men rich or poor, whatever their class". Listen to how she exhales like she's in coitus. Ther camera pans on her naked legs. It couldn't be more explict. There's also another song Jajambo! which might not mean much today but is a reference to 50's ideas of cha cha, jazz and the exotic "wild" that were popular in nightclubs in those days.

Sijia decides to teach Hanhua a lesson about being snobbish. She seduces him while singing The Merry Widow. He can't figure out how a lowlife knows so much about classical repertoire. We know nothing about her background except that  she's been on the streets since she was 14. Maybe she, too, came from the upper classes and dreamed of better things, but she's suffered like everyone else in China at the time. She's beautiful, but to get where she is, she's been through hell.
Gender reversal in this film isn't about sexual preference but about politics. The nightclub is society in microcosm. Nightclub hostesses are bought like commodities but Deng doesn't play the game. "I sing", she tells her friend who has a sugar daddy, "I don't sleep with customers". Just as she doesn't sell out as an artist, she doesn't sell herself.

Liang Hanhua cannot cope even when they fall in love. He's so fixated on the old order that even when he's alcoholic and unemployed, he won't let Sijia do her thing or make a living.  His fiancée isn't much better. She, Wu Suxin (Yun Shen) represents traditional Chinese female models of deference, though she in fact pulls the apron strings. She needs, for example, to escort Hanhua to and from work like a child, so he won't get contaminated. She manipulates him by using his mother's authority. But as Sijia says, there's no difference between traditional womern and prostitutes. "You want him for permanent rice ration", Sijia tells Suxin.

Yet even Sijia, like Carmen, cannot escape. Sijia goes back to work, in her audition for a new nightclub, she sings Un bel di, dressed as Madama Butterfly, the nice girl forced into prostitution who sacrifices herself for love. In 1960  the image was still slightly shocking as memories of the Japanese occupation were still fresh. It's a parody of submissiveness. The disfigured triad boss who used to own Sijia comes out of jail and wants to claim her. Hanhua tries to kill him, in an interesting reversal of the Don José/Escamillo theme. When Hanhua gets out of prison in his turn, Sijia is waiting, faithfully. But Hanhua still can't handle the situation. Instead of finding out what's really going on, he stabs Sijia in a fit of rage. Even Suxin thinks he's a fool.

Ultimately, it's Sijia who makes the more altruistic sacrifice, compared to Suxin, making Sijia a true Chinese heroine after all. She dies, but she shows the way for others. In the end it's meek Old Wang, who represents mindless, uncomplaining sorrow, who explodes. Sijia raised money to save his wife, and Hanhua has killed her because he doesn't understand the real value of money, which is to benefit others. "How could you do that!" Old Wang howls, in indignation. Sijia's dead but we aren't supposed to accept the old order any more.

Beneath this Carmen narrative lies political dynamite. Like Bizet's Carmen, the Wild, Wild Rose deals with alternatives to conventional social norms. But Sijia isn't a gypsy outsider but an otherwise normal Chinese girl, with more education and sophistication than she's given credit for. Sijia could be Everywoman. In the context of Chinese society, she's truly subversive. So radical, indeed, that The Wild Wild Rose could teach western culture a thing or two.

This amazing movie needs to be understood, too, in the context of Chinese film and social history.Far too often Chinese culture is judged through west centric parameters, which totally distorts the perspective. It's a throwback to racist, imperialist colonial values. Instead, appreciate Chinese film from a Chinese background. The first Chinese movies were being made as early as 1909, not all that long after Mélies in France, and preceding The Keystone Cops and Chaplin in the US. Right from the start, film was seen as a medium through which modern ideas could be promoted. The first Cantonese film makers were politically radical. Lai Man Wai (Li Minhui 黎民偉, 1893-1955) was a supporter of Sun Yat sen. Watch the clip for more detail. Rumour has it that Lai used film equipment to smuggle guns to the rebels during the Xinhai uprising in 1911. One of the principles of the May Fourth Movement was to create change through education. Literature, film, and the arts were the weapons of this "real" Revolution, not guns or warlords.  Thus, many early Chinese films address modern issues against feudal practice. All Chinese modernizers emphasized social conscience, one of the basic principles of Sun Yat Sen's revolution, but also a tradition that goies back to Confucios and Buddha and the scholar ideal of social service. There is no "right wing" iu the modErn western sense.Ge Lan herself came from a prominent Gou Min Dang family, and worked in Taiwan.

Many of the earliest filmmakers were from Guangdong Province, with close links to Hong Kong and overseas Chinese communities. most of which were southern in origin. Indeed, the first studios, even in Shanghai, were founded by southerners. The Cantonese film community was so big that the first really big Chinese movie star, Ruan Lingyu (Yuen Ling yuk 阮玲玉 1910-35)  couldn't speak Mandarin, the northern and national language. Luckily, her films were silents. Again, Ge Lan is a radical. Unlike so many other Chinese actressses who coimmitted suidide and had sad lives, Grace Chang ius still alive in California. Look how healthy she is, and how athletic (see Mambo Girl).  She wasn't the first feisty Chinese heroine (think Li Lili) but she's a role model for modern women. Wang Tian lin, who directed, and his producers, obviously came from a later generation, but one which was even more radicalized. The Chinese film industry was left liberal. Indeed, there was no real "Right"  in China since all, even the Blueshirts, respected Sun Yatsen's Three Principles of social justice in theory if not in practice. Many film people declared for communism after 1949, and those who didn't emigrated if they could.  While once there was a Guangdong community in Shanghai, there was now a huge Shanghai community in Hong Kong.  The Wild Wild Rose is thus a product of an exile community, made in a city where everyone had been a refugee, as Hong Kong itself had been depopulated under Japanese occupation.  Everyone involved in this film, at every level, including Ge Lan herself, was a refugee who knew about trauma first hand. There are no gypsies in this version of Carmen, and Deng Sijia is an insider, but the whole film is a paradigm of dislocation and social chaos. So this film is, in a way, the voice of a minority that speaks for us all.

HERE is a link to buy the DVD. I've used Yesasia before, they're OK. Always check DVD Region first. LOTS of other Carmen pieces on this site, (Lubitsch, Chaplin etc)  incl full movie downloads, the early recordings of the Habanera (1891!) etc. Also even reviews of the Bizet opera ! Click on label at right that says "Carmen".

Why Carmen in 3D can work

Bizet's Carmen bombed when it was first heard. Too difficult, too decadent! They couldn't give tickets away. Now it's the world's favourite opera, known even to people who don't know what opera is. So  bear that in mind when assessing Carmen in 3D from the Royal Opera House. I'd never seen a 3D movie in my life, so was worried by some negative pre publicity from people who don't know the production or film. Anything new upsets people. But Carmen in 3D isn't the end of civilization. It's just new technology applied to something familiar.

Carmen was the first opera to be filmed, in 1D and silent, which defeats the purpose of opera, but still appealed as a story. Look at  two early Carmen films - Charlie Chaplin's 1915 Burlesque on Carmen and Ernst Lubitsch's 1921 Gypsy Blood. They are so hammy it's embarrassing. But film was such a novelty then that people didn't have preconceptions of what filmed opera should and shouldn't be. 3D or RealD, to use its proper name, is so new that it hasn't really evolved.  I don't think it's as big an advance as 2D (HD) is on 1D but it's never a good idea to write anything off too soon.

This is after all the first opera on 3D, the start of a learning curve. Indeed, it's not even aimed at an opera audience so much as at the 3D market. There aren't that many 3D films around, so there's plenty of commercial pressure to produce more and expand the range. Now that everyone can watch DVDs at home, cinemas need something unique to beat the competition. The idea is to give people an experience they can't do at home. What's so bad about making the movies a social occasion again? And why shouldn't 3D audiences have opera instead of theur usual fare?

It's extremely significant that the first 3D opera is Carmen, and not something esoteric. Francesca Zambello's production is safe and popular, which is why it's been revived so many times. Everyone's seen it before, and there's even a DVD with Antonacci and Kaufmann. So serious opera goers have nothing to lose. Why not share the fun with people who might not otherwise go? For many, just seeing inside  the Royal Opera House might be a revelation. Normal people in the audience! The singers are shown before and after as perople, being made up and taking their bows. This film counteracts the elitist image of opera and might bring in new audiences. For all we know, teenagers might watch this. They've been known to discover opera in the past.

The film is very different to the opera experienced live. Somehow the colour process has been drained out, so the film is very dark and oppressive, like early Technicolor in the 1940's where all the tones are faded. Wearing X ray specs doesn't help. I took mine off and there was some improvement.  But without the shining golds and jewel tones on the Toréador and Torrero costumes a lot of the splendour is gone. Live, Escamillo's entry on that huge black stallion takes your breath away, it's so wonderful. Here it looks like a different horse altogether.  Even the cortege of candles in the procession doesn't shine. Some details work well, like the leather corset Carmen wears, but much of the impact of Zambello's production is lost. I don't know if the cause is technical or a result of the filming.

This Carmen wasn't made for 3D or even for film, which is an advantage because the director, Julian Napier, doesn't need to strive for special effects. So don't have nightmares about this being anything like the 3D horror movies of the 1950's. At the beginning, Bryan Hymel reaches out at the camera, and his hands are distorted like crazy. Then you see him grin. It's a joke! The movie avoids obvious stunts as much as possible, though there are odd moments, such as when guyropes cross the camera's field of vision or actors run across the outer edges.

Zambello's staging is notoriously horizontal, so I was hoping there might be more shots from different angles, such as from the ramparts, as the crowd scenes can't be seen too clearly. One plus of 3D is that it adds depth to this production. For example, when the soldiers assemble in the market place, the camera follows the arch they make. Crowd scenes are much more clearly defined. Part of the meaning of the opera pivots on the iidea of private individual as opposed to public persona. 3D actually makes this clearer, since key figures really do stand out from the background. Carmen in particular benefits, because she seems even more alone in 3D than she does live. I suspect with time, film makers will realize that with 3D less is more, The details that really improve are small things like the way Christine Rice crosses the fingers in her hands, like a protective hollow, not "big" movements like jumping and runnning.

Which bodes well, as less is always more on film. Closeups help.  Carmen does not need the kind of semaphore acting Chaplin and Lubitsch were forced to use in their day. Because she comes from a very upper class background and has a Cambridge degree, Carmen-as-slut doesn't come naturally to Christine Rice. Instead, she portrays Carmen as a tense personality living on the edge, which is perfectly true.  Like most people who use sex to manipulate others, Carmen probably doesn't really enjoy it. So when Rice looks at Escamillo and suddenly relaxes, you knw what it means.

Performances all round are good, but the orchestra really comes into its own in this film.  The Royal Opera House orchestra is always reliable, but conductor Constantinos Carydis gets specially vivid playingvfrom them  so the music pulsates with energy and colour. Like many in this cast he may not be a household name outside Europe but so what? Europeans kmnow a little bit about music. Besides, he's good and that's the most important thing.  3D is good for filming orchestras. It gives visual depth, so the difference between rows of musicians feels more realistic. And when you can see depth, your mind picks it up aurally, too.

A few weeks ago I went to an excellent conference at UCL on "Carmen and Her others" whichgh was about the Carmen archetype as it adapts from novel to opera into other genres and locales. Last count there were over 100 variations on the theme, including from several different parts of Africa, and China, and versions in rock and pop. Beyoncé stars in a hip hop version !  (Please see descriptions of numerous versions on nthis site by using the Carmen label on right) . So the world can take a 3D Carmen, no problem.

The trouble with all the "reviews" in the press is that they are written as reviews of the performance by people who clearly haven't seen much opera. It's irrelevant whether this is a good or bad production, or even a good or bad opera. It's not news, ikt's been around forever. What is news, and what they're supposed to be reviewing is how the 3D realization works or doesn't.  So it's all ther more refreshing read this article here where someone has taken the trouble to think. Like the man says, "I'll take Herzog's opinion".

Calixto Bieito Carmen Barcelona

Mention "Calixto Bieito" and anti-modernists charge like enraged bulls, whether or not they know his work or even know opera. Bizet's Carmen shows how rewarding - and operatically valid - Bieito's approach can be, and a lot more "authentic" than most. My review of the ENO Bieito Carmen in London is here.

In Spain, audiences know enough about bullfighting not to be fooled by kitschy imitations on stage. Escamillo appears in full toreador garb at the right time, but the image is used sparingly for maximum impact. Bullfighting is an ancient ritual, pitting man against nature,  challenging death itself. Just like Carmen.

At Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Bieito's Carmen is specially potent. Catalunya straddles the border between Spain and France: this is real Roma, Basque and Catalan territory. Throughout history there have always been underclasses, living on the margins. Bieito dioesn't need to "update" anything. His gypsies and townsfolk are utterly authentic. Once they drove caravans, now they drive battered old cars. The women are dressed as the poor do everywhere. When the smugglers find "flamenco" dresses, the scene becomes a game. Everyone knows it's putting on an act, not reality.

Béatrice Uria-Monzon's Carmen is a powerful figure. She wears a denim skirt, but it's embrodered and lined with satin. Like the poor dress all over the world, her friends wear chain-store tat, but Carmen references grander things. But for her poverty, she could be someone, and aspire to more. Uria-Monzon doesn't camp up the Habanera. It's Carmen's public persona. When Uria-Monzon sings Près des remparts de Séville, her voice becomes lustrous. She's revealing the true Carmen. All those tra-la-las and seduction moves are survival tactics. Only rarely can she sing  je chante pour moi-même.

Like Carmen, Escamillo lives on his wits. Erwin Schrott's face is half hidden by his hat and he uses cunning rock star moves, but the splendour of the voice reveals the depths of Escamillo's soul. Schrott exaggerates the Gallic snorts, which is good: it highlights the wildness of the character, creating Escamillo as if he was a bull. a powerfully animalistic icon, bursting with energy. The singing comes in short bursts, sudden dramatic turns. Just like in a bullring, where both bull and toreador must be in control, waiting for the decisive, sudden lunge.

A huge silhouette of a bull dominates the staging in Act 2. No need for a literal inn, because Spain itself is a smuggler's den. The silhouette is the Osborne Bull, the famous billboard scattered over the landscape so much that it's become a symbol of Spain. Yet it's an ad for a company with English roots selling Spanish products to Spaniards, and Catalans are fiercely independent-minded. A male dancer creates a wonderful tableau in the darkness, stripping off symbolically, dancing with the grace of an animal. He's both bull and toreador, bending his arms inward towards his chest, the way a bull is skewered. Incredibly poignant.

In the first orchestral interlude, a young girl imagines herself as a dancer, and props up her (blonde) Barbie Doll. She's so young, yet already she's buying into the seamy side of life, because that's what girls have to do in these situations. She'll end up corrupted but what choice does she have? Frasquita and Mercédès sing of marriage as an escape, but Carmen knows it's an illusion. Perhaps it might be shocking to some that the child choruses here include young girls well on the way to prostitution. But that's a fact of life in extremely poor societies (and rich ones too). Why should people be horrified by seeing such things on stage when reality outside is even worse?

If anything, Bieito downplays the sexuality, for sex here is a business transaction like any other. He's interested in the wider implications. First the Osborne bull and its connotations of economic colonialization. Then there's a blonde tourist, sunning heself, nonchalantly ignoring the poverty-stricken masses behind her. In Britain, these levels may be missed, because Bieito doesn't force them too explicitly. But in Spain, and in Barcelona, audiences know what they mean. Again, why be shocked when reality is so much more brutal?

Roberto Alagna sings a convincing Don José. He's sympathetic, as the object of Micaëla's love, but macho enough for us to believe that Carmen might fancy him. But he's no match for Schrott's lethally erotic Escamillo. As the case should be - it wouldn't do otherwise. Marina Poplavskaya makes a nicely strong Micaëla, tough enough to brave brigands, but again, not specially feminine. The attraction for Don José is mother and homeland.  The singer doing The Lieutenant deserves mention. He's tall and sexy, another "bull" figure with his physical presence and authoritative singing.
 
Please read Opera Cake on Bieito's Basel Aida - intelligently analyzed. No doubt some audiences won't cope with the idea of "Ethiopian" underclasses destabilizing "proper" society. But again, that's what's happening in the real world.

Bizet est Mauricien

Carmen in the Mauritius ! Please see the review here.
"Même lorsque la musique nous rapproche des Pyrénées Atlantiques, la fin du deuxième acte ou dans le troisième, même si nous pensions qu'elle chaussait des sabots auvergnats, la mise en scène, interactive nous fait voir les visages multiples de la cigarière (la scène de la fabrique) : ceux de notre pays! "

First Carmens Habanera 1905 ?

Click here for a link to a recording of the Habanera, made in 1905. Mlle Jeanne Marié de l L'isle (1872-1926) sings the Habanera from Bizet Carmen.

It's interesting not only because it's so early, but because Mlle de L'isle's aunt and teacher was Célestine Galli-Marié (1840–1905), (pictured left) the first Carmen, who worked with Georges Bizet. Célestine, a star of the Opéra-Comique, was also a friend of Massenet, premiering Charlotte in Werther. Jeanne's grandfather was a very famous bass. Interesting how singers then operated as family businesses. That's how singers as young as Malibran got ahead, making their debuts in their teens. Rare now.

To quote Vincent Giroud :
"What is particularly impressive about (Mlle de L'isle's) interpretation, apart from the perfect execution of vocal ornamentation (including occasional interpolated grace notes), is the lightness of touch and lack of affectation. No tragic femme fatale, she brings to the role, instead, unusual touches of youthfulness and charm, particularly apparent in the Dance—perhaps, one wonders, to her own castanet accompaniment. She “speaks” the role, never shouts it, and for once, Bizet’s expressive direction for the “Card Scene,” “simplement et très également,” is taken literally."

La donna è mobile in Mandarin

La donna è mobile in Mandarin - Grace Chang (Ge Lan) See (and hear) why she's such an icon! This comes from the film Wild, Wild Rose which is a retelling of the Carmen story. I'm doing a lot on this film and the whole Carmen meme at the moment and its cultural significance. Carmen is a "modern woman" who isn't appreciated.

Lubitsch's Carmen - Gypsy Blood

Another version of Carmen, this time the 1921 film directed by Ernst Lubitsch which became a huge hit in the US and paved the way for his Hollywood career. Gypsy Blood is the title, but it's a fairly straightforward account of the Prosper Mérimée novel. Bizet at least injects colour, flamboyance and good tunes. In comparison, Lubitsch can't compete for thrills.

Gypsy Blood made Pola Negri a megastar.  Polish girl finds fame as Basque gypsy in French novel  as German made movie repackaged for the US! Modern Times, we'd say, with deliberate reference to Charlie Chaplin, one of Negri's lovers, who also made a take-off of Carmen in 1918. Watch Chaplin's Burlesque on Carmen in full download . You can see why Lubitsch's version was an improvement. And it makes you appreciate the much greater sophistication of  Rex Ingrams's Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, also 1921. Ingrams is making an art movie with political kick, not just a pot booiler.

Carmen is intriguing because she's a symbol of womanhood completely outside convention. Lethal termptresses are a primeval archetype - Eve in the Bible, and before her, Sumerian goddesses with wings and bisexual characteristics. Mérimée's Carmen caught the imagination because she overturned 19th century propriety. Mérimée draws a cultural safety net around her by emphasizing her ethnicity. Gypsies were supposed to be uncivilized creatures, or as Hitler would say, irredeemable Untermensch. Real Roma are right to be offended by Gypsy Blood.

Ironically, Mérimée came across the story via a Parisian socialite, but he wasn't being racist so much as fascinated by alternatives to mainstrean western European culture. Carmen, like Zuleika in Goethe or  Isolde in Wagner, represents new possibilities with ancient antecendents. Carmen, though, breaks basic moral rules. She smokes, she drinks, she lusts, she does crime. Carmen in the 1920's gave legitimacy to millions of New Women, who smoked, drank, danced, and lusted like she, though most didn't cross ethical boundaries.

Lubitsch's Gypsy Blood is crude even by film making standards of the time. Negri's exaggerated kiss curls are so ludicrous that maybe the film's reminding us it's farce. Film techniques then were primitive  hence the cartoon-like makeup and overdone gestures. But even by the standards of the time this semaphore acting isn't even trying to be realistic.

Please read other posts here on Carmen - Chaplin, Bizet, the new ROH 3D film and the Chinese Carmen, Grace Chang (Ge Lan), whose film Wild, Wild Rose is one of the finest developments of all (barring Bizet). I've written a lot on Chinese film and its part in modernization, and have given FULL downloads too. Carmen isn't necessarily a "bad girl" but a personality adapting to rapidly shifting social mores. That's why she's such a potent symbol.

Sing Along Carmen First Opera in 3D

Tonight, there's a big-screen broadcast of Carmen from the Royal Opera House beamed live at various locations. There will be "Sing Along" events too, which sounds like fun! Everyone knows the tunes and singing is physically rewarding even if the person next to you might not like hearing you. Still, that's what's good about Carmen. Carmen is one of the people, she'd be out in the streets too singing if she could. (Watch your wallet, though.)

Here is the full link to the review of this Carmen which appears in Opera Today. Bear in mind that it's being filmed in 3D high definition, the first opera 3D film ever made. Because of the way films are made, preparations are made well in advance. Chances are camera crew, director etc. were in on rehearsals. They can't just turn up and shoot.

Let's hope the rain holds off as Sing Along Carmen to big screen could be good.   Last night at Garsington it poured. But really posh folks are used to getting wet in muddy fields.  It was Rossini's Armida, light years more artistic than the brain-dead Met Armida this spring. More on that soon, watch this space.

Habanera in Chinese

New improved version of the classic Habanera from Ge Lan (Grace Chang) complete with English subtitles. It comes from the film Wild, Wild Rose in which Ge lan plays a night club singer. A Nice Boy comes to play piano in the club, he's a classical musician and hates lowlifes. So she makes him play arias which she then deconstructs. Hilarious! Below she's seducing him to Johann Strauss. Also snips from Rigoletto, Puccini etc. They fall in love, but she's "owned" by a gangster. Nice Boy shoots gangster and goes to jail. Eventually Wild Wild Rose kills herself so Nice Boy can go back to original Nice Girl and start a new life.

Subtle Carmen? 3D film Royal Opera House

Everyone knows the tunes from Carmen, even if they don 't know they come from an opera. So it's good that the world's favourite opera is now to become the world's first 3D opera film. 3D is a higher grade version of 2D High Definition currently available. It's been used in Avatar, the hit sci-fi fantasy, so it could bring a whole new audience to "the opera experience". 

Carmen is an ideal choice. We're so familiar with it, we forget how dramatic the plot is: crime, sex, blood and murder. Slutty women, men in cute uniforms. Carmen could have been written for the screen. In fact, lots of movies have already been made, so why not the opera itself?

Francesca Zambello's revived production is perfect too, because it's visually stunning. Watching it last night in the Royal Opera House, I kept imaging what a good film director might focus on, because this is a production that lends itself to being seen from different angles. In the auditorium, for example, it's easy to miss the small ensembles high above the stage, "on the ramparts" so to speak, who have a panorama on the village the seated audience don't see.

 Townsfolk mill about doing things, washing themselves, selling things, leading a live donkey across the stage (courtesy of Island Farm Donkey Sanctuary).  This is a set that just begs for the quick shots and pans you can do in film.  Interpretively, this busyness is valid, because Carmen and Escamillo have public images they need to pander to. Would Carmen be quite such a terror if she didn''t have an image to live up to? And Escamillo is the media darling of his time, adored because he risks his life to give the crowd a thrill.

Visually, this Carmen is stunning. The town glows in earth tones, ochres and reds. The smuggling scene's mysterious, sinister blues, greys, greens : The last scene outside the bullring is harshly lit, empty. Carmen has nowhere to hide, dark shadows loom.

The ensemble scenes are particularly effective. The children are wonderful, each distinctively individual and fun. They dance sequences are great. Even though you can tell the professional dancers from the dancing singers, that's part of the charm. The Toreros, of course are magnificent - they move like the dancers they are, and such costumes! Maximum impact is what it's all about. These peasants have grim lives, they need circus. Perhaps that's why Zambello created the religious procession in Act 3 which doesn't make sense otherwise. The Church is theatre too, and images of Jesus are often covered in blood. (If I were filming this, I#'d do a shot of flickering candles, snuffed out).

Part of the fun watching last night's performance at The Royal Opera House was imagining how it would grow  First Night Syndrome affects every production, but this time there's the film to think about too.  So much is hanging on the success of the film, which is a historic first.

Christine Rice's dark good looks make her a good choice for the part.  Her singing is precise and attractive, but a wild abandon would liven the characterization.  Carmen's lowdown, mean and dirty. Rice is well bred and lady-like, not really the sort of girl who sticks men's heads up her skirt to taunt them. She shows the softer sides of Carmen's personality better, such as in the card game trio with Frasquita (Elena Xanthoudakis) and Mercédès (Paula Murrihy), all three singing particularly well. A wonderful vignette.
 
Aris Argiris's Escamillo has huge potential. The "public" and "private" Escamillo co-exist, but often the public version dominates. The Act Two entrance is so dramatic that it overshadows all else -in this production, horse and all - but what was interesting for me was the way Argiris conveyed the double edge of the song. Escamillo's describing the spectacle of a bullfight, yet there's a wistful vulnerability when he sings of the "dark eyes" that are watching him.  This is important, for what Escamillo and Carmen have in common is this inner sensitivity other people cannot see, but which they recognize in each other.

Butch Escamillos we can hear any time,  but this one's much more interesting because it's subtle. Film can show details easily missed in an auditorium, so Argiris's characterization will "grow" to advantage in close-ups.  The part is written in an unusual way. The big entrance is dramatic, but it doesn't last long.  In the confrontation between Escamillo and Don José, the part is written more conventionally. In the final act, Escamillo doesn't have very much to sing at all.  But therein lies the intelligence of Bizet's approach.

It's not the macho big moments that really make Escamillo, but the short, concealed glimpses of who he really is.  Escamillo makes his entrance, then disappears as quickly as he came. The critical part in this scene isn't the flashy showmanship, but the moment when he glimpses Carmen.  The love duet lasts only moments, but again, it's powerful because it's understated and private. Argiris's Escamillo is much deeper than the usual playboy image. Because film can focus on intimate detail, we'll be able to appreciate this much more thoughtful approach to Escamillo. Indeed, this may also reveal the true depths of Christine Rice's Carmen.

It's significant how Bizet contrasts the two couples, Carmen and Escamillo and José and Micaëla. The former don't actually sing all that much, but the latter sing on, and on. Since the latter pair are more c9onventional, their parts are written more conventionally too. Brian Hymel's Don José struggled vocally in the first act, but by the final, and critical final act, he was in better form.  He'll be heard to advantage as the run progresses, and in the film. Singing, unlike bullfighting, isn't sudden death.

Maija Kovalevska's  Micaëla, on the other hand was superb from beginning to end. Sometimes,  Micaëla  seems like a minor part because she's just a kid, but Kovalevska's solid vocal authority brings out the role's hidden  power.  Micaëla travels into smuggler's dens to find José. She's more of a man than he is, sweet as she may be. Indeed, she's a protoype of Carmen herself,  because she, too, is independent and takes risks for love. It's her Covent Garden debut too, but she's sung the role at the Met and in Munich. She has impressive experience elsewhere too.

Since Carmen's so familiar, we think we know it. But prerhaps there are things in it we could still discover. I'm looking forward the the ROH film, 3D or not, if it's well directed . The stage direction could be tightened up, movements sharpened and French diction improved, but all in all, this was pretty interesting.

A much better version (with pix) of this is on the Opera Today site, where there's also an interview with Aris Argiris and details about the 3D film. The film is being made for the 3D audience rather than an opera audience as such.. There aren't many films for this kind of cinema, so wjy not give them a bit of culture with their usual fare? Dozens of adaptations of the Carmen theme exist, including one with Beyonce. So anyone who gets hysyterical about Carmen in 3D is a fool and a snob..

Aris Argiris sings Escamillo , ROH Carmen

Aris Argiris makes his debut at Covent Garden as Escamillo in Bizet’s Carmen. But this is unusually high-profile. The Royal Opera House is having this Carmen filmed in 3D digital technology, which is higher grade than the current 2D high definition.

Such a debut would put pressure on any young singer, but Aris Argiris, the 35 year old baritone, is resilient ..."Escamillo is a Toreador, he’s not afraid”, says Argiris. “He gets charged by bulls all the time, so he stays calm, even when José pulls a knife on him. His job is to fight bulls, not to kill men. It’s not worth his time. He thanks Carmen for saving him, but actually he’s already getting up. Next minute, he forgets about the duel, and thinks ahead, inviting everyone to the next bullfight.”

“Escamillo is a big star, all around him people are singing “Vivat! vivat!”, so he has to give them the kind of show they want. Why do people like watching blood, danger death? I don’t know. But Escamillo gives them a thrill. Both he and Carmen are the centre of attention, they have to give their public a dramatic image, so they both have these wonderful arias. So Votre toast, je peux vous le rendre is Escamillo’s Habanera”.

“But Escamillo knows that in the bullring, he is alone with the bull. Real Toreadors are very young”, adds Argiris, “Seventeen, maybe 21, but they have to be young, like footballers, because they have to move fast. They can’t grow old or the bull kills them”. The aria is full of thrills, but also “un œil noir”. Someone, something is watching the Toreador. Is his fate love? As Carmen sings, love is a wild bird that cannot be trapped. And bulls have dark eyes too.

“Escamillo acts like he doesn’t care, but he is a deep person. Carmen too, acts like a devil, but there is something more in her. She is a bit like Don Giovanni, everyone wants to be with her, but everyone gets hurt. So she’s a challenge to someone like Escamillo who shows no fear. The moment they see each other, the whole atmosphere changes, even though she pretends to be haughty. The meeting is fatal, because it’s the beginning of the end for Carmen”.

“What they feel is ursprunglich, it comes from deepest parts of the soul. At this moment, nothing else matters, they can’t think rationally or about consequences, it’s pure instinct.”

“Their love duet must be the shortest love duet in the whole repertoire, only a page and a half. They sing in unison, but it only lasts a moment, like their love, which will end too soon. There’s nothing like it between Carmen and José”. In the middle of the interview, Argiris bursts into song, he’s so moved. “Listen how it ends with a modulation. It cannot go forward because their love will not go forward. It’s amazing how Bizet writes it, it’s deliberate. He’s telling us that this love cannot be fulfilled. The moment is short, but it’s so important, and it’s cut with strange harmonies from the orchestra.”

“And look”, Argiris adds, “how Escamillo shows his love for Carmen to the whole world, without fear. She was a gypsy and was a smuggler, but now she is the Toreador’s Lady, and she has the best seat on the horse. She is someone important. Yet at that moment of triumph, she is killed. So it’s not an accident that, when Carmen dies, the Toreador melody is heard again. In the distance Escamillo has killed another bull. The crowd cheer, but he has lost, because he has lost Carmen”.


A longer and more detailed version of this will appear shortly in Opera Today. First Night is tomorrow. Read more about Argiris here. He's a nice guy. .PLEASE READ THE REVIEW HERE and on Opera Today soon

Charlie Chaplin's Burlesque on Carmen

So yoiu can appreciate Bizet'sr Carmen at the Royal Opera House, here's Charlie Chaplin's 1915 take, Burlesque on Carmen.  Because it's a vehicle for the Little Tramp, the star is Charlie's Don José and his merry dealings with Lilas Pastia. And the men dressed up as a mule! Edna Purviance's Carmen doesn't get much to do except repeat her usual role in Chaplin films.