Carmen on the Royal Opera House evaluation: Glorious, chaotic and complicated | Music | Entertainment | EUROtoday

Last 12 months, when Damiano Michieletto’s manufacturing of Carmen first appeared on the Royal Opera House, Aigul Akhmetshina’s obtained nice reward for her efficiency within the title function. This 12 months she has returned even higher. This Russian mezzo-soprano has developed into the proper Carmen. Quite aside from an attractive voice which is especially highly effective on the low notes in Bizet’s rating, her appearing is deliciously commanding, making it clear why she has whole management over the various males in her life.

My reservations about Michieletto’s manufacturing, nonetheless, have remained. This Italian director is stuffed with concepts, a few of that are strikingly efficient whereas others range from pointless to complicated. On the plus aspect, all of the characters are nicely developed, with the badly behaved youngsters within the city sq. initially creating simply the suitable ambiance for the mayhem that follows. The smugglers within the following act are additionally convincing as significantly skilled law-breakers.

On the opposite hand, I nonetheless don’t see why Michieletto has created an additional characters within the type of a girl wearing black who seems proper firstly slowly making her means silently throughout the stage then returns enigmatically later. Apparently she represents Don Jose’s mom, however whether or not she is supposed to symbolise his conscience or to be some type of mystic ghostly presence is completely unclear and provides nothing to the story.

Also having the kids seem initially of the later acts holding up playing cards saying, in French, “two weeks later” or “a few days later” is a pleasant, mild contact when it first seems, however their closing look when the playing cards are jumbled is only a poor try at humour when it’s least wanted. A muted and relatively embarrassed response from the viewers confirmed this opinion.

The function of Don Jose, used, beloved and eventually rejected by Carmen, was excellently performed by Italian tenor Freddie de Tommaso. Often portrayed as a relatively hapless character, completely underneath the spell of Carmen, Tommaso’s Don Jose seems extra advanced, struggling to take care of the conflicts created by life, love and his obligations. As Carmen’s perspective in direction of him varies from the fervour of affection to the harmful ardour of whole rejection, the scenes between her and Don Jose are convincingly gripping.

Compared with the robust performances of Akhmetshina and de Tommaso, Polish bass-baritone Lukasz Golinski is much less convincing as Carmen’s new love Escamillo, however he brings a pleasant contact to his combat with Don Jose, utilizing his jacket as a matador’s cape. Chilean soprano Yaritza Veliz was wonderful within the function of Micaëla, who involves plead with Don Jose to return to his mom. Like Akhmetshina, Veliz was a member of Covent Garden’s Jette Parker Young Artists programme which it’s good to see persevering with to provide singers of such a excessive calibre.

Altogether, I’d say this can be a five-star efficiency of a three-star manufacturing of a wonderful opera.