Carmen: A Cast of Dozens!

What a lovely note on which to end the 2018-2019 season of the Opéra de Montréal.

The usual disclaimer applies as always — not an expert, just have my own observations, sometimes comment out of left field…

Right from the beginning I knew I was going to like this production of Carmen. The overture so familiar that I was almost convinced that Bugs Bunny had done three operas, and not the two I can remember more clearly. Bizet, who died without knowing what a hit this work would become, is to be revered for a lively start, but the credit for the scene that greets our eye as the curtain goes up goes entirely to the Opéra de Montréal.

Carmen walking in silently, pulling and constrained by an enormous train of red fabric from which she eventually breaks free (but will see again). It doesn’t take long for the stage to become populated by a huge crowd, there almost all the time, which is lovely for its wealth of costumes, but even more so for the many chorus singing roles. Love that!

Carmen might be the headliner, but let’s take a moment to talk about Micaëla, who enters searching for Don José to deliver a letter from his mother, but also to show her love for him, and his mother’s wish that he marry the messenger! France Bellemare has a really strong and beautiful voice. If she had more parts to sing, she would surely have stolen the show. Just lovely.

Seductress Carmen, arrested for her part in a fight in the factory, uses her wiles to persuade Don José to let her escape. He suffers the consequences, but seeks her out after his release from prison and she persuades him then to commit a further transgression by deserting to join the gang of smugglers.

Act 3 opens with a lovely visual effect, a series of lanterns working their way onto the stage behind the scree. There were images on the scree (projections?), but the way I saw it, it seemed like some of those lanterns were coming through it into the foreground. I think I was fooled by the visual effects! In any case, we ended up in the smugglers’ camp, and two of the Gypsy women (yes, I know, Roma women, but Bizet lived in another time!) were reading their own cards, with ever more fanciful and profitable fortunes, right up to the death of a wealthy husband, leaving the card reader a wealthy widow (she seemed delighted by that). Count on Carmen to cast a pall over that party, with a self-reading of doom and gloom and death! No wonder her relationships don’t last long!

Fabulous toreador Escamillo makes a play for Carmen, but all he succeeds in doing is provoking Don José into a fight. Carmen has to intervene to break it up. Micaëla announces Don José’s mother’s severe illness and imminent death, he leaves with her, and that is too much for Carmen. End of that relationship…where is that toreador?

There’s a lovely crowd scene celebrating the arrival of the various teams of bullfighters, each with a role so specific that I was confronted by my ignorance of bullfighting and what everyone’s role might be. Escamillo is, of course, of the highest rank and the most lauded. Also the most adored by Carmen, apparently, who has moved on rather nicely from her last failed relationship.

If only Don José had moved on, too, we might have a happier ending. Instead, we get the spectre of controlling intimate relationship violence, as he tries to prevent Carmen from returning to the bullring and eventually stabs her. Cue the return of the red cloth, this time a giant banner hanging from above, attached to Carmen in her death like a river of blood and completing the metaphor. Don José proclaims his guilt and invites arrest. The curtain falls before we get to that.

So now that I have mistold the story (that you find elsewhere with greater clarity, I’m sure), let me share my uninformed opinions about the singing, the costumes and the sets!

This is really what I look for in an opera: catchy tunes, beautifully sung, opulent costumes (and SO MANY of them, what with the crowd on the stage!). I love that there are many duets and many songs for the chorus, as they sounded fabulous. The children (there were many of them, too) were excellent in their roles and excellent singers as well. I couldn’t see in the program who they might have been, but we suspected a school somewhere in Montreal.

Oh, and let me appreciate the nods to flamenco. The rhythms are not in Bizet’s work, but we do get a couple of guitars on stage, the sound of castanets from the orchestra, and some distinctly flamenco moves. I love flamenco and associate it with the Carmen story (though as an aside, I also associate with this lovely video of a protest in a Spanish bank — how more delightful can you get than deploying this powerful culture-specific art form to protest the ravages of modern finance?!)

The set was spare, the outdoor square doubling as an indoor space by the addition of furniture, some other elements descending from above to suggest a more industrial area (smuggling space). The multimedia aspect was a little light in this one, with a short thunderstorm and the projections and other use of light that I have already noted.

We left very satisfied, though, and would highly recommend seeing this on one of its upcoming dates (7. 9, 11 and 13 May 2019). Tickets here if there are any left!