“…a fine, and innovative staging of Carmen, fitting for Scottish Opera’s 60th year in business.” The Nation’s Operatic champions triumph again.
📍 Festival Theatre, Edinburgh
📅 Fri 9 to Sat 17 Jun 2023
🕖 Evenings 7.15pm | Matinee 3pm
🕖 Running time: Approx 3 hours (includes interval)
🎬 Director: John Fulljames
🎶 Conductor: Dane Lam
🎤 Chorus Director: Susannah Wapshott
⚒️ Set Designer: Sarah Beaton
🧵 Costume Designer: Christina Cunningham
💡 Lighting Designer: James Farncombe
🎦 Projection Designer: Will Duke
🩰 Movement Director: Jenny Ogilvie
🎬 Assistant Director: Roxana Haines
🎂 Parental Discretion
🎭 Wheelchair Accessible Venue, Wheelchair Accessible Toilets, Audio Induction Loop
Few Operas, perhaps none, transcend their musical theatre origins more than Georges Bizet’s Carmen. The risk-averse Opera company, as replete with the talent as Scottish Opera, could make their accountants happy with a by-the-numbers production. It is a measure of Scottish Opera’s ambition and integrity then, that this Carmen is no safe undertaking.
The first revelation is Christopher Cowell’s all English libretto, the second a re-framing of the heroine’s ultimate rejection of conventional society as part of a protest movement. However, rising Lithuanian mezzo Justina Gringyte still imbues her Carmen with the iconic swagger and free-bird sensibilities of her forebears. She still dominates the stage in flamenco red, and disdains the role intended for one of her sex and class in a pre-emancipation Spain.
Ill-content to stop with these adjustments, Director John Fulljames frames the story within a Taggart-esque police investigation. Thus it is we first meet former police officer Don José (Alok Kumar) under arrest, and being questioned by an Investigator played by Clown Doctor and River City regular, Carmen Pieraccini.
Eschewing the least Spanish kitsch, Sarah Beaton’s set offers high-rising walls built from independently mobile panels. It’s a blank canvas upon which Projection Designer, Will Duke conjures grandly scaled feeds from hidden cameras. The backdrop is thus a live created work of smartly choreographed small-scale actions, from crime scene photos hitting the Investigator’s desk, to Carmen’s tarot cards turning over to reveal death, time and time again.
Being articulated, the set panels can also be moved – wholesale or in part – creating doorways, windows, or admitting the entire cast at once. There’s an undeniably widescreen cinematic feel when the walls are lifted in tandem to frame the action beneath; a nod perhaps to the Opera’s many celluloid incarnations.
However an Opera can be as cleverly conceived as any before, and that dressing will still fail to rescue a production which fails in the fundamentals: singing, acting; and particularly in the case of Carmen, moving with style. Fortunately Scottish Opera has assembled a fantastic cast, led by an utterly charismatic Justina Gringyte who blazes across the stage, every bit as magnetic in person as Bizet paints in song. If her dextrous instrument isn’t the most puissant, she still inflects each word with sugar, or venom as required, and finds every note in the part’s notoriously niche range. Her ‘Seguidilla’ in particular proves of surpassing sensitivity, and lyrical splendour.
Counterpart to the ill-fated factory worker, is tenor Alok Kumar’s obsessed police officer, at first resistant to her charms, and thus made her number 1 target. There’s little sympathy in this rendition, his Don José ultimately a weak, controlling man who can’t tolerate ‘his’ woman’s personal agency. Kumar’s voice makes light work of every note, and he certainly channels enough toxic masculinity to banish the least hint of the heroic – ruined or otherwise.
Phillip Rhodes‘ Escamillo is very much the rock star of proceedings, an influencer if you will. This is no great intellect, just a man famous for his talents in the execrable bull-ring. It’s his comfort in allowing Carmen her own choices which cultivates her growing attraction to him, even as her fondness for José turns to ash. I prefer a more bass-oriented Baritone for the role, but it’s a respectable showing, and the ‘Toreador Song‘ is given a more than stirring outing.
However, it’s Soprano Hye-Youn Lee’s Micaëla, the jilted former love of José, who dazzles with a voice overflowing with power and crystal clear beauty. Her performance of ‘Je dis que rien m’epouvante‘ is nothing short of stellar. The curtain call on the show’s Edinburgh opening accordingly provided two particularly raucous cheers, the first for her, the second for a rambunctious, and dynamic orchestra under Dane Lam.
The chorus under Susannah Wapshott, bolstered by a lively children’s section, have endless fun with the iconic tunes, and bustle admirably in the many crowd scenes. Mention is also required for Zoe Drummond and Lea Shaw, whose Frasquita and Frasquita make lively, opinionated comrades for Carmen, as well as adding their distinct and delightful voices to the mix. The entire cast move with suitable style under Jenny Ogilvie, and if there have been ‘dancier’ Carmen’s, there are still a fine clutch of extravagant set pieces. The choreography of the ‘Toreador Song’ is particularly memorable, substituting pantomime bulls with highly mobile tables.
Beyond this, this staging obviously creates another potential point of failure in the crime-scene investigation framing. It’s thus a wise move to cast the experienced Carmen Pieraccini to act as the story’s cynical detective, in a solely speaking part. She has the chops to weight her scenes with José and to make this more than a gimmick.
So there we have it, a fine, and innovative staging of Carmen, fitting for Scottish Opera’s 60th year in business. Kudos are also deserved for the company attracting not only a full house for the show’s Edinburgh debut, but one rich in patrons from across the demographic range. It seems that a reputation for being a stereotype defying, paradigm-shifting organisation, combined with the world’s sassiest Opera achieves precisely the audience theatre-makers across the globe so regularly fail to. There’s a lesson in that, one we can hope they will still be teaching for another 60 years.
Scottish Opera’s new production of Carmen concludes the company’s 60th anniversary season. The final performance will be on the 17th June 2023.
