Cincinnati Opera closes season with
‘fiery’ Carmen

By Burt Saidel

Cincinnati Opera closed its Spanish season with one of the most popular operas in the repertory, Bizet’s Carmen. While many opera goers say “not another Carmen,” the loyal Cincinnati audience reacts quite differently. Opening night was sold out to the walls of Music Hall.

There is a special wizardry at Cincinnati Opera. This season has surpassed every imaginable desire. I call it a dream season. A lilting and lyrical Marriage of Figaro was the opener. Next, a pure and beautiful Don Carlo lifted your reviewer and the audience into flights of fervent enthusiasm. This was followed by the season’s “new opera,” the Spanish drama, Ainadamar, which introduced the opera, composer and subject in a complete triumph.

What were Artistic Director Evans Mirageas and his gifted staff to do to end the season in grand style? The answer was to assemble another great cast of excellent voices, a great conductor and stage director to put their own passions into this most passionate and tragic love story.

The métier of Cincinnati Opera has been to “grab its audiences” immediately. The opening of each opera captures and intensifies the viewer’s appetite for what is to follow. For Carmen, the debut of Romanian soprano Ruxandra Donose was most unique.

During the overture, dramatic lighting picked out this attractive young woman on a balcony moving her arms like a ballerina. Suddenly, the lighting focused on a long line of uniformed statues until the scrim lifted and the lighting colors changed them into handsome 18th century flesh and blood soldiers.

From that moment on, the captivated audience watched the reality of the opera played on four stunning sets, but never lost the realization that this was opera – the great theater of grand opera – at its best.

In rapid progression, soldiers, townsmen children and the infamous “cigarette girls” filled the stage under the choreography of Stage Director Mark Streshinsky and Victoria Morgan. The orchestra, under the baton of Maestro Andreas Delfs, played beautifully.

By the time the characters were spinning the story line, we were all in a Spain of make-believe ready to be enthralled by the drama and its tragic ending. As the lover Don José, handsome American tenor William Burden made female hearts throb in his debut. His was “the voice of the evening.”

His home-town girl Micaela was sung by lovely American soprano Sandra Lopez, also in debut. The immediate chemistry between the two lovers and their hesitant exchange of kisses supposedly sent by Don José’s mother was enthralling.

Carmen and her fiery gypsy wiles begin the tragedy. In the famous “Habanera” she avows that her love must be free as a bird. She entices all the men but focuses on Don José, throwing her famous rose at him like one of Cupid’s arrows. Vocally, Ms. Donose was more an ensemble Carmen. She did not dominate the stage but blended with the magnificent choruses - men, women and children - who added so much to the excitement of the opera.

The moment the rose hit its target, Don José’s fate was sealed. A pawn to his passion, he was unable to return to his devoted love and to his duties. The opera was performed in its original Opéra Comique version with spoken dialogue. This was revised to include recitatives, grand opera style, written after Bizet’s death by Ernest Guiraud. The dialogue, especially in this crisp and clear reading, does so much to complete the characters.

The spoken words illuminate the personalities and antics of Carmen’s four accomplices. Amita Prakash, Elizabeth Pojanowski and Ric Furman, all part of the young artist’s program, and the ever versatile Steven Cole sang with thrilling perfection

Their combined élan and the lighthearted approach, even in the tragic card scene, gave the opera that special “zing.” There was plenty of that “zing” in the fight scenes and in the fierce exchanges between Carmen and Don José.

And there must be the handsome toreador. Met regular Baritone Dwane Croft was exactly that. Bold and handsome, he used his machismo to make the Toreador scene vibrate with the help of the chorus.

The drama moved smoothly to its inevitable tragic conclusion. In the final scene, set before the bull ring in Granada, the panoply was wonderfully done. Instead of the usual procession of supernumeraries dressed as bull fighters, the matadors were dancers, clad in marvelous “suits of lights.” They danced with verve and elegance to presage the ultimate tragic ending.

Carmen is now the magnificently dressed paramour of the hero Escamillo, the toreador. She is warned that Don José, rejected and estranged, is in the area. As the cards foretold, death was the lover’s portion. Carmen would never waver from her true self to avoid even the icy hand of death.

It was this death scene, acted and sung with elegant conviction by Don José and Carmen, which closed the opera and one of the most magnificent seasons of any opera company anywhere.

If you missed any of these productions, there is always next year. It is Cincinnati Opera’s 90th birthday! You won’t be able to resist a fabulous “Meistersinger” with James Levine on the podium, Otello, La Bohème and a star-studded Gala. Why not assuage your guilt and disappointment by calling 513 241 2742 and be the first subscriber for next season. OK, you can tell them that Burt sent you.