Opera Review: Boston Lyric Opera’s “Carmen”

Carmen’s vocal shortcomings are frustrating but, from a production standpoint, Bieito’s vision – even if it’s not quite as racy as advertised – comes off better than any new canonical production I’ve seen BLO present in the recent past.

Carmen. Music by Georges Bizet. Libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy Production, Calixto Bieito. Revival Director, Joan Anton Rechi. Set Designer, Alfons Flores. A co-production with Boston Lyric Opera and San Francisco Opera at the Opera House, 539 Washington Street, Boston, MA through October 2.

Carmen (Jennifer Johnson Cano) scrawls “love” on the chest of solider Joseph Yonaitis in Boston Lyric Opera’s production of Georges Bizet’s “Carmen."

Carmen (Jennifer Johnson Cano) scrawls “love” on the chest of solider Joseph Yonaitis in Boston Lyric Opera’s production of Georges Bizet’s “Carmen.” Photo: T Charles Erickson.

By Jonathan Blumhofer

If there’s any theater director European critics (and some audiences) love to hate, it’s Calixto Bieito, whose sex-and violence-heavy reimaginings of the core operatic repertoire sometimes seem designed simply to ruffle feathers. For better or worse, precious little of Bieito’s craft has made it to these shores. But that trend is changing. Next year, he’s directing a new La forza del destino at the Metropolitan Opera and, this season, San Francisco Opera and Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) have brought his 1999 production of Bizet’s Carmen to the States. This past weekend, after lots of hoopla, BLO kicked off its itinerant 40th-anniversary season with the local premiere of Bieito’s Carmen at the Boston Opera House.

So what are the takeaways? Well, first of all, Bieito’s Carmen isn’t scandalous, at least not by any modern definition. It has its provocative moments, surely, a well as its confusing ones, but it mostly sticks to the script: aside from updating the action to the 1970s, replacing the smugglers’ donkeys with several 1970s-era Mercedes sedans, and moving the locale from Spain to Spanish North Africa, this is in many ways a traditional Carmen. It just lacks some conventional discretion.

Much of the production itself is effective. Alfons Flores’ sets are spare but, with the exception of the opera’s final scene (in which the wide open stage doesn’t really do a convincing job conveying the tightening noose of Fate and Carmen’s inexorable demise), readily convey the menace and mystery of the story’s setting. Mercè Paloma’s costumes, from the drab Army khakis of the first act to the gaudy multi-color spectacle of the crowd in Act 4, fits and, at times, enlivens the proceedings. And Joan Anton Rechi’s stage direction both uses the space smartly and keeps everyone moving convincingly – not always a simple task given the opera’s large cast of soldiers, gypsies, smugglers, and bullfight-cheering crowds.

It’s problems chiefly arise from an occasional lack of subtlety and some confounding additions, including a “moon baptism” scene during the Act 3 Entr’acte featuring a toreador stripping and dancing, nude, before a cutout of a giant bull. But even with these hitches it’s an affecting production: timely, entertaining, and thought-provoking.

One of the best thing about Bieito’s staging is that it makes the character of Carmen almost immediately sympathetic and appreciable. That’s not as easy as it sounds. She’s a temptress and provocateur, after all, characteristics not generally celebrated in women. The environment in which she lives constantly threatens violence, be that physical, sexual, emotional – or all three. Bieito’s Carmen, though, is more than a match for her surroundings. She’s no cutout or archetype but a fully-developed person: passionate, complex, and driven by her impulses. She embraces life, lives fully in the moment, and holds no regrets whatsoever.

It’s quite the combination of traits and, in Jennifer Johnson Cano, BLO has a singer who embodies (or at least lives up to) most of them. Indeed, in Sunday’s matinee that I attended, Johnson Cano sang the title role with a warm and dusky tone that, generally, suited the part well. Her performance was plenty characterful: playful and ironic during Act 1’s famous Seguidilla, seductive in Act 2’s “Je vais danser en votre honneur,” and dramatic in Act 3’s “En vain pour éviter.” There were a couple of spots – the Act 1 Habanera was one of them – where you might have wished she had been given a bit more acting to do, but, in the great dramatic scenes between Carmen and Don Jose, she was all fire and passion.

Alas, the same can’t really be said of Roger Honeywell’s Don Jose. This is a character who’s supposed to be young and virile, wide-eyed to a certain degree and a bit of a Mama’s boy, but also capable of extraordinary violence. Honeywell’s Jose was, except for the last, hardly any of those. He looked and sounded old and world-weary. There was a maturity to his stage presence that made Carmen working her wiles on him all but unbelievable. And, even though there’s a nifty knife fight in Act 3 and Jose dutifully offs Carmen in Act 4, the disconnect between these actions and how the character was conveyed over the opera’s first half was pretty great, indeed.

It certainly didn’t help that Honeywell’s voice seemed small for the theater and that he appeared to be straining to project through most of the opera. As a result, there was little beauty of tone to be gleaned from his singing, though some fervor did come across in the last two acts, especially the opera’s final scene. But, worse, there was no real chemistry between this Jose and Carmen: while what he might see in her could be glimpsed, why a vixen like Carmen would waste her time on this timid, waffling Jose remained more than a small mystery.

What Carmen might see in Michael Mayes’ Escamillo was a bit more apparent: he’s a tough guy, a celebrity, and he’ll give her what she wants. I wasn’t blown away by Mayes’ singing – while his upper range sounded robustly his lower register didn’t project and, in parts of “Votre toast, je peux vous le rendre,” it almost sounded like he was attempting a kind of guttural Sprechstimme – but he at least conveyed the part intensely.

Doing that last but also singing excellently was Chelsea Basler, whose Micaëla – despite her small part in the opera – was one of Sunday afternoon’s standouts. Like Carmen in this production, Bieito’s Micaëla is no pushover (she gets the last word – or, rather, gesture – when she leaves with Jose in Act 3). Basler sang the part boldly. She seemed to be having lots of fun in her Act 1 duet with Honeywell (replete with knowing selfies) and brought sumptuous tone and laser-like focus to Act 3’s “Je dis que rien ne m’épouvante.” And she more than held her own with Vincent Turregano’s threatening Moralès during their first-act encounter. In all, it was another great performance from a local star who seems to be going places and fast.

The remainder of the cast was adequate, though no one reached the theatrical or musical level Johnson Cano and Basler did. Liam Moran’s Zuniga was well-, if a little sternly-, sung. The character’s murder at the hands of El Dancairo and El Remendado (sung by Andrew Garland and Samuel Levine, respectively) offered, given their Mafioso-like costumes and the forty-year-old Mercedes on stage, a welcome allusion to The Godfather, the severe violence of that scene about as jarring as one might have hoped it to be. Kathryn Skemp Moran’s Frasquita and Heather Gallagher’s Mercédès projected well enough over the crowd at the end of Act 3 but, when singing in smaller ensembles, tended towards shrillness. Only Yusef Lambert’s ever-drinking Lillas Pastia provided a welcome, sardonic ray of light to the afternoon’s proceedings, as well as the production’s one truly shocking moment: the toppling of the giant bull prop onto the stage at the end of Act 3.

Escamillo (Michael Mayes) and Don Jose (Roger Honeywell) compare notes on their rival love for Carmen in Boston Lyric Opera’s production of Georges Bizet’s “Carmen."

Escamillo (Michael Mayes) and Don Jose (Roger Honeywell) compare notes on their rival love for Carmen in Boston Lyric Opera’s production of Georges Bizet’s “Carmen.” Photo: T Charles Erickson.

The BLO Chorus sang crisply and were joined to excellent effect by the children of Voices Boston. The latter’s short scenes in Acts 1 and 4 were among the afternoon’s freshest and best.

David Angus led the BLO Orchestra in an accompaniment that moved along nicely, even if it wasn’t the crispest one on record. A few dead moments (volume-wise) in Act 4 notwithstanding, it was at the very least a pleasure to hear this ensemble performing in a pit that flattered its sound, which blossomed and filled the space in a way the Shubert Theater’s acoustics never allowed.

That said, the Opera House proved something of a disappointment for staged opera. Unless a singer were standing on the lip of the dais, the vocal sound pretty much went straight up, not out into the house, which, perhaps, helps explain some (but not all) of the unsatisfactory vocal results from the main floor. BLO’s next two standard-repertory operas travel to, respectively, the Cutler Majestic Theater and John Hancock Hall, which have their own limitations. So the challenge of finding a proper home for opera in Boston continues apace.

As for this Carmen, its vocal shortcomings are frustrating but, from a production standpoint, Bieito’s vision – even if it’s not quite as racy as advertised – comes off better than any new canonical production I’ve seen BLO present in the recent past. Like the characters whose stories it tells, it’s flawed but coherent, and striking in its timeliness. That, and the rare opportunity to encounter Bieito’s work on these shores, make the last two performances (September 30 and October 2) worth catching.


Jonathan Blumhofer is a composer and violist who has been active in the greater Boston area since 2004. His music has received numerous awards and been performed by various ensembles, including the American Composers Orchestra, Kiev Philharmonic, Camerata Chicago, Xanthos Ensemble, and Juventas New Music Group. Since receiving his doctorate from Boston University in 2010, Jon has taught at Clark University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and online for the University of Phoenix, in addition to writing music criticism for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

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