Endlessly Adaptable Carmen
Nashville Opera stages new production of the Bizet classic
Carmen
April 7 & 9 at TPAC's Jackson Hall
Nashville Opera Association concludes its 2004-5 season this week with its third production of Bizet's Carmen and a cast of performers who are willing to push the boundaries of the verismo (realism) style. "It's been said that producing successful and sold-out opera is as easy as A-B-C, so long as you present Aida, (La) Bohème and Carmen," says Nashville Opera's artistic director John Hoomes. "Carmen is a masterpiece in so many ways. It's a French opera by a French composer, but at its core it feels like an Italian opera in all its passion. And then it's set in Seville, Spain. So it's truly multicultural."
Besides its innumerable operatic stagings, the Carmen story—with all its violence and earthy sexuality—has been filmed many times, musically and otherwise, including Otto Preminger's 1954 African American reworking Carmen Jones and, more recently, a hip-hop version featuring Beyonce for MTV. Its composer never lived to witness its success. Bizet died of a heart attack at the age of 37, a mere three months after the opera's somewhat coolly received 1875 debut at the Paris Opera Comique.
"Bizet was ahead of his time," Hoomes says. "He was pushing toward the verismo style before audiences were ready for it. Carmen deals with raw emotions that go so over the top that real catharsis can be fully explored. The story deals with loss and consequence, and I want to direct this production so that it overwhelms the viewer."
In some instances, the music will be instantly recognizable, even to those who've never set foot in an opera hall. From the stirring bombast of the familiar overture, to the lilting, flamenco-like "Habanera" with its pointed orchestral wallops, to the staccato rhythms of the almost parodic "Toreador's Song," these motifs have often been exploited, including in Saturday morning cartoons and in movies like The Bad News Bears.
Mezzo-soprano Layna Chianakas portrays the title role of the spitfire gypsy girl who works in a tobacco factory. The jealous army corporal Don Jose is played by Thomas Rolf Truhitte, a strapping, blonde tenor whose background includes drumming in a heavy metal band, an attempted career in professional sports and a voice that has him heading for newer horizons in Wagnerian opera. (Truhitte's father, Daniel, played the role of the Nazi youth Rolfe in The Sound of Music.) Veteran baritone Guido Le Bron is the arrogant bullfighter Escamillo, and the diminutive (and very up-and-coming) soprano Kelly Kaduce plays Don Jose's hometown sweetheart, Micaela. Mark Flint, well-versed in the Bizet catalog, conducts the 60-piece Nashville Symphony.
"It's a fairly gritty piece," Hoomes says. "Dramatically, we're looking to be as honest as possible. We're trying to eliminate any opera posing. We're going for all the spectacle and grandeur. We've got all the crowd scenes and the big bullfight procession of Act 4, and we've got a cast of about 80, including a cigarette-smoking chorus, children and supernumeraries."
Hoomes chuckles. "Maybe we should have a disclaimer: 'No sopranos were harmed by secondhand smoke.' "
—Martin Brady
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