“L’etoile fait tout”
“Maybe this bold staging was a little overwrought. But when you have Ms. Garanca as Carmen, why not?” Anthony Tommasini offers an object lesson in the art of Criticism as Starfucking.
Okay. Here’s “why not.” The idea of turning Carmen’s dance into a lap dance basically strips a whole layer of meaning and irony from the scene. Even working from the recitative text, we have this:
José arrives and tells Carmen he loves her. She tells him that she has just danced for his officers. (She is trying to make him say he’s jealous.) Once he says, “Yes, I’m jealous,” she responds by pretending to believe it’s the dancing is the specific reason for the jealousy. “Very well,” she says, “I’ll put on a little dancing show for you, just as I did for them.” She even says in a mock-grandiose style “Je vais danser en votre honneur.”
The point is, the dance is a ironic game Carmen is playing with José: she’s taking his words literally and acting on them, a sort of pun. Now, a director could choose that he gets into the little comedy and plays along, e.g., pretending to be a serious audience member. Or he might be flustered, not knowing how to read what she’s doing.
But what seems to La Cieca to be out of bounds is simply to abandon the idea, so plainly expressed in the text (and, it can be argued, in the formality of the music) that Carmen is doing a deliberate performance here. In fact, what could be more revolting than the idea that she should say, “Now I will show you exactly how I danced for those other men,” and then commence to dry-humping José’s leg?
Ironic humor is part of Carmen’s appeal; so why should you just chuck all that out because you have Ms. Garanca available (and, so far as we can tell, unable to learn how to play castanets)?
As someone very interested in the theater and as one who has performed, however amateurishly, I can say that every production and every individual’s characterization of a role is usually quite different. We have different Carmens in the Eyre production, hence we have different Carmen interpretations. I wonder how Gheorghiu would have handled it?
Eyre sees things differently than his predecessors. Hence a different tone. I’ve seen the stage play “Night Must Fall” by Emilyn Williams done several times and done it myself, and I can tell you that, while I never saw Williams himself in the original, what has been done has varied greatly. What he originally intended was obviously not the main way his successors looked at the task before them. With this in mind, I am willing to look at each production as being the work at hand. What Bizet or Verdi or Wagner wanted was not always what they got, to the point that they revised their works. (Ok Bizet didn’t get time to do so with Carmen but you should be able to see what I mean))
Yesterday I saw, for the first time, “Master Class” and my companion, who saw it years ago on Broadway, said that she distinctly remembered three being a good deal about Jackie O, which was entirely missing from this production. I can’t tell you why. I can tell you that a lot of very good material gets reworked. Verdi reworked Stiffielo into a whole new opera and the present version is sort of a reconstruction, or so I read. What was his original intention- What was his ultimate one? What should we undertake if we wish to present a viable work?
Even Shakespeare had to be revived from later centuries’ revisions.
So, you don’t like splits in period costume? Mattila and her direction thought it worked. Next time we may have acrobats (in period costumes, of course) but who knows? Obviously, no one really knows what works until the production is mounted or there would be far fewer flops on Broadway.
I, myself, am a bit of a traditionalist. While my tradition includes the Lambertville Music Circus (Good old St. John Terrell,) with its limited sets, I really can’t say that I like either the Tosca or the Carman sets. They’re too barren for me. I saw Carman at NYCO and then at the MET and thought the Met, in those days, had a much better image. The same held true for the Magic Flute film of Bergman versus the Met’s. So, yes I like a more realistic rather than a more symbolic set.
As an aside, was it Patricia Munsel that I saw in the Merry Widow at Lambertville? Perhaps. (You could look it up, I know.)
I can’t wait to see how La Cieca presents La Georghiu’s cancellation from the MET Carmen produciton this season. Do you think people actually buy tickets purposely to hear her?
Yes.
Hello CruzSF. Yep, that Carmen was my first in-person Opera experience back in ‘73, I think, when the Met was on tour. The production was touted for restoring much of the original Opera Comique spoken dialogue (for what it’s worth) and for the use of primitive video effects to create some of scenic backdrops. Some say Horne wasn’t suited to Carmen, but I thought she was great!
The MET knows full well that people love boasting to their other friends that they (GOT!)/ have future tickets to see the Romanian Rabbit in ‘this or that’. Does it then happen? With all this most reliable cancelling (not because of sickness) both the MET and A.G it could be alleged are into false advertising of goods, knowingly ‘not available’.
Yes!
Of course! Patrice, not Patricia. And yes here it is and yes I was there!
From the Music circus schedule:
“The Merry Widow”
August 20 thru August 25, 1968
Starring
Patrice Munsel
I AM Patrice Munsel!!!! And possibly saw that Merry Widow if it was a tour.
No Expert, Bernstein used the Oeser edition for that Carmen with Horne, and that meant restoring some of the dialog (I’m not aware of any recording that has ALL the dialog). The Oeser is really obscene and shoddy, as is his deformation of Hoffmann (Michael Kaye has done a wonderful restoration of that, maybe one day his final thoughts will be recorded).
About Carmen you could look up Winton Dean’s definitive deconstruction of Oeser, his many inaccuracies and his misunderstandings of Bizet’s process that fueled them. It took in some conductors including Maazel (who recorded the most ‘complete’ Oeser butchery with Moffo (!!!) and Corelli (!!!), but also Bernstein and for a moment, Karajan (on the second recording). Solti’s recording uses some Oeser readings but is reasonable on the whole and I love Troyanos’ sound there.)
Ernest Guiraud (a pal of Bizet’s who was born in New Orleans) wrote the once inescapable recitatives and supervised the first widely published score in 1877. However as I posted here the last time there was talk of this revival of Carmen there is a new critical edition, which I’ve read at the library. It returns to the autograph and also uses additional material in Bizet’s hand that made up the first night performance (in so far as that can be established with certainty). This includes cancellations of music by Bizet, which Oeser ignored, as well as simplifications of harmony and orchestrations (also in some cases ignored by Oeser). There are also changes in the various vocal lines, and some uncertain readings for the role of Carmen have been cleared up.
That Horne performance was disliked by a lot of people but I thought taken on its on terms and despite Oeser it was a lot of fun, though it was REALLY old time opera given how Jackie and Big Jim looked and behaved. I think they both did well the first season, though neither quite kept up that ease and distinction later. Some of that was Bernstein who had strange ideas and pulled tempos around but could certainly galvanize performers and the audience. I don’t think the DG recording is as good as some of the live performances were, it is acoustically odd for one thing. But I think there is an in house of the opening night that is exciting.
For now the ‘best’ authentic Carmen is the wonderful Comique version from 1950 conducted by Cluytens with the great Solange Michel, first on EMI now on Naxos (but must be imported to USA). Wonderful cast, thrilling, the (as usual) shortened dialog spoken by the singers, with wit, and Cluytens leading with wonderful brio (he made a slightly later recording of the recitative version that isn’t as good).
Bumbry/Vickers also has dialog and an odd ‘pantomime’ after the Morales scene, which is not in Oeser or the critical edition, except as an appendix — but the dialog is spoken by actors with very different voices and accents than the singers.
Goo-Goo’s recording was to be ALL editions rigged so that one could program one’s CD player to hear one or another but Goo-Goo showed up not knowing the role so they settled for the standard version, though as an appendix she does sing one of Bizet’s drafts of the Habinera (the familiar one is lifted from Yradier).
I never liked Stevens period, sorry to say (she was adored by many) but that Reiner RCA with Peerce et al is wonderfully conducted. I thought the greatest Carmen overall was Crespin though I think her commercial recording is dull and I don’t think the pirates quite capture the magic I thought she had.
Lee never did it live but I have a sneaking fondness for that disgraceful Herbie recording with truly ghastly French and much village band sonority from the conductor (though at a very high level of execution).
But the MUST HAVE is the greatest Mario Del Monaco at the Bolshoi (VAI DVD), extended excerpts with Archipova and Lisitsian (!!!). The audience becomes hysterical over Mario whose carrying on has to be seen to be believed and may not even be believable then but he does pour out sound (in Italian but occasionally forgetting and doing some bad French).
Of course you can explore Italian editions, my fave is with Pertile and Buades that causes people blocks away to call the police. And there is the Zenatello/Gay (his wife in life) final scene, which is certainly the most insane of any.
…most insane..? Even more than the final scene with Simionato and Corelli in Italian? I must get a hold of that one!
A propos “L’etoile fait tout”, can we please talk about the one featured legitimate (if not necessarily legitimately featured) dancer in the production? Allow me to tee off for just a moment on the ever catatonic/monotonic Maria Kowrowski, who brought as much commitment, dimension, and passion to her onstage performance of Carmen’s alter ego as she did to her backstage marking warmup. Robert Gottlieb describer her as “detached” and “contained” in a New York Observer review in 2007: “Yet though she looked like a ballerina and danced ballerina roles, she didn’t present herself like a ballerina.” Can’t say I’m seeing any improvement here. Apparently she never got the company memo indicating that competent execution of the requisite steps gives the audience a bunch of competently executed steps to look at, but doesn’t exactly make you a star. Or maybe Peter Martins just never bothered to send it. Sometimes I think he picks his principals by throwing darts at a company roster. OK, rant over.
Kowroski
described
Re: the specific scene mentioned and the specific point made by La Cieca (at the top of the thread): I agree that dry-humping DJ’s leg certainly strips the humor (or sarcasm?) out of Carmen’s game-playing. That whole section, and much of the rest besides, seems part of the wider trend in opera direction: to over-explain, which strips the subtext or any other meaning from the work. I saw the same thing in the Bondy Tosca. With Bondy, instead of letting the music or the libretto tell us that Scarpia is a psychopath who enjoys sexual kinks (taking by force rather than by consent), we have the 3 whores who pleasure him in his office. Leaving to the imagination the means by which he satisfies himself (as referenced in his Act II aria) is much more interesting than seeing a mock blowjob from a lingerie-clad prostitute.
In Carmen, interesting to me was that Alagna’s performance managed to inject some of the subtext of the opera into the production, despite the direction. His DJ clearly had the devil visible under the surface, almost from the beginning. He practically dared Carmen to unleash him as he looked and smiled at her as she sang the Habanera. The killer of Mérimée might have been replaced in the libretto, but there was no question that Alagna’s mamma’s boy enjoyed a part of being so far from home.
As I watched the HD retransmission of Carmen Wed. night (the first time I’d seen the theater packed for such a repeat), I was very impressed with one thing: Garan?a’s physicality. The direction is really designed for someone who can show some leg, dance alone and in an ensemble, get up on a table, and sing while being held aloft by four studly gypsies (this last part made me gasp – how does one continue to pour out the sound while being moved around the stage, on your back, by four men?).
Now, this may not have been a Carmen for the ages, for all the already stated reasons (Garan?a’s fire is too cool; too much distraction with the pas de deux; horribly underlit, blue third act; voice too light), but it did at least attempt to create a Carmen who is realized as a physical – as well as a vocal – being. I do recognize that what was worth seeing for $22 in my local cinema would have left me underwhelmed (and pissed off) at $100 at the Met.
With Borodina assuming the role, I wondered if the direction would be tailored for her more voluptuous sensuality. On the radio, her voice might be more suited than Garan?a’s for Carmen, but I can’t imagine her inhabiting the stage in the same way. If only Garan?a channeled Borodina’s voice for the performance…
I always thought Carmen was from Andalucia and thus liked to play the castanets when dancing but perhaps I was wrong, perhaps Carmen is from Russia or Latvia and plays the balalaica.
Alagna’s Don Jose is a nice boy who goes astray because that interpretation suits him and his stage persona. Having him be a sociopath from the beginning would have been as wrong, it would have made him look like a poseur. I think one of the strengths of Eyre’s production is that it allows leeway for a lot of different interpretations. When Jonas Kaufmann shows up I’m sure his interpretation will be darker and more sinister, and the production will hold up just fine with the different interpretation.