Georges Bizet died at the age of 36, thinking Carmen was a flop. He had barely reached the grave when those who had curled their lips at the premiere three months earlier – too immoral, too long, too formless – changed their minds, brought back to their senses by grief. History did the rest. A highlight of the opening weekend at the Edinburgh International Festival was a production from the Opéra-Comique in Paris, where the work had first been performed in March 1875. French authenticity, fluency and humour were only part of the success. This was the third Carmen I have seen this year: each with muted excitement expected (no other Habanera), each in its own way, replacing hesitation with rousing adrenaline and musical brilliance. If only Bizet had known. His story is not as terrible as Van Gogh’s, but there are parallels.
This version, which travels light, with a simple set and few props, conducted by Louis Langrée, directed by Andreas Homoki and designed by Paul Zoller, leaps through the centuries, reworking tropes from the original Parisian staging into a generic present. Crimson and gold draperies in a false proscenium arch are a constant, with a few meta-theatre tricks employed (follow spots, house lighting, the surprised acknowledgement of an audience), but not overdone. Costumes evolve, from top hats and bustles to war fatigues to jeans and T-shirts. In the final act, the audience gathers to watch the arrival of the toreador’s powerful entourage — banderilleros! quadruplets! – on a television set. The antenna suggests that the wheel of time stood still a few decades ago. Carmen raises enough issues around male violence. There’s no need to spell it out. (Other operas in the popular canon present far greater problems for directors to negotiate on that front.)
French mezzo-soprano Gaëlle Arquez had a sexy grace and vocal flexibility without resorting to hip-shaking or pouty lips. She played it cool, too. Dancing? Absolutely not. When she tells Don José (Albanian tenor Saimir Pirgu) that she will indeed dance for him, she simply starts ripping off his clothes: a reverse striptease. Pirgu was ideal casting, brightly colored, powerful, convincing in his sexual humiliation. French bass-baritone Jean-Fernand Setti, as his rival Escamillo, had an almost comical level of bravado, but when you have to wear a tight suit of lights and pink silk socks, you can tolerate as much excess as you like.
The well-chosen ensemble, the French chamber choir Accentus and the children’s choir la Maîtrise Populaire de l’Opéra-Comique were admirable, together and apart. In an update of the old alliance, this French company was joined by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, which played with a wonderful fluidity, capturing all the sensual accents of the score, conducted by Langrée with an energy that was at once relaxed, louche and explosive.
In the Usher Hall, each seat was sold for 100 euros. Yuja Wang‘s solo recital: eight encores, each more extraordinary than the last, with a short concerto to boot. That’s only a slight exaggeration. This unique pianistic meteorite, who commands the stage with magnetic authority and inscrutable charm, played a recital of Chopin’s Four Ballades, as well as eight preludes (and two fugues) by Shostakovich and Samuel Barber’s spiky, ferocious Piano Sonata Opus 26 (1949): enough for everyone, you might say. There were internal connections in her choices, not least several percussive fugues. Wang plays her cards wisely, but is not one to give them away. From Philip Glass to Tchaikovsky to a Chinese piece, she had the audience screaming “I love you” (well, someone did).
In the Queen’s Hall is the Leonore Piano Trio content with one encore, by Haydn and in its own way just as exciting. They had Clara Schumann’s youthful Piano Trio, Opus 17 and Helen Grime’s wonderfully inventive and varied The brook sings loudlybut the main work, Dvořák’s Piano Trio No. 3 in F minor, Op. 65, showed the aural capacities of this combination of instruments, here superbly played by musicians who like to talk about the work in advance. In the case of the Grime, cellist Gemma Rosefield’s explanation was all that was needed to help the ear follow this atmospheric work, with its fitting nod to the Highland bagpipe tradition.
Abstraction meets expressionism head-on in Glyndebourne’s classic staging of Wagner’s Tristan and Isoldenew in 2003 and now in its fourth revival, Nikolaus Lehnhoff’s production (revival director Daniel Dooner) is bathed in powerful silence. Concentric circles, fixed and stepped, shift from slate gray to intense blue to black, now boat, then omphalos, then camera lens. The fated lovers stand apart, inevitably joined by the power of Wagner’s score. As she sings her climactic Liebestod, Miina-Liisa Värelä, fiery and ever-assured as Isolde, dissolves into the great beyond as if swallowed by an all-powerful focal point. Twenty-one years later, the production still compels—not the only way to make this opera, but one of the best.
The London Philharmonic Orchestra played with intensity, control and detail. Of the many highlights in the six hours (including the interval), the elegiac English horn solo in Act 3, in which the dying Tristan awaits Isolde, stood out. Stuart Skelton, in his house debut, is a seasoned Tristan but still a world leader, able to convey every shade of feeling in this marathon role. He was uncomfortable negotiating the set, which unfortunately also injured Karen Cargill. Brangäne was sung instead by Marlene Lichtenberg (and later in the series by Tanja Ariane Baumgartner). Shenyang (Kurwenal) and Franz-Josef Selig (King Marke) seized their moving moments with skill.
The evening was Robin Ticciati, in his 10th year as Glyndebourne’s music director. From the prelude to the last bar, every note was beautifully timed, wisely judged. Quietly and without show, he has evolved from prodigious youngster to mature, serious conductor, up there with the best. Next year: ParsifalThe question is whether Wagner’s Holy Grail festival will please the picnickers.
Star Ratings (out of five)
Carmen ★★★★
Yuja Wang ★★★★
Leonore Piano Trio ★★★★
Tristan and Isolde ★★★★
• Tristan and Isolde is at Glyndebourne, Lewes, East Sussex until August 25