Young women parade around in hot pants and read their fate in the cards. Listless men in police uniforms sweat, drool and rule. Spain, at the Royal Opera House Carmen, newly staged by Damiano Michieletto and conducted by Antonello Manacorda, is a semi-urban wasteland at the end of General Franco’s era. A land long steeped in God, corrida and family has encountered modernity. Girls bare their midriffs and want freedom: a cry that is more urgent and credible in this mid-1970s update than when Georges Bizet’s masterpiece was new (and flopped) a century earlier, in 1875.
With world-class Russian mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina in the title role, ROH has acquired a dream Carmen. (A second cast will be led by another Russian, Vasilisa Berzhanskaya, starting May 12.) Only 27-year-old Akhmetshina, a former ROH Jette Parker artist, inhabits the role in all its nuances. She shows vulnerability, is vocally athletic and physically convincing. Her virile but hapless Don José is Piotr Beczala; they just sang the same roles together in Carrie Cracknell’s new film Carmen at the New York Met. The Polish tenor’s gilded top notes match those of Akhmetshina in energy and brilliance: he is deft in suggesting, in gesture and posture, a man bound together by duty and desire.
The ROH Youth Opera Company, a choir of nine to thirteen year olds, sang enthusiastically and captured our hearts
Now the favorite Carmen all over the world, Achmetshina is too sharp-witted and too much of a fireball to fall back on habit. No doubt she will create a very different character when she reprises the role at Glyndebourne this summer (under the direction of Robin Ticciati, directed by Diane Paulus), just as she did when she joined the ROH staging of Barrie Kosky. Kosky’s radical adventure was a tour de force, which took place on a steep staircase. Not everyone loved it. I did. The ROH life, like that of the title character, was short, maddening and provocative. It could never have lasted.
Designed by Paolo Fantin, with costumes by Carla Teti and lighting by Alessandro Carletti, Michieletto’s production looks sustainable. In an almost empty stage, a hut locates the action, serving as a police station, nightclub and dressing room before the bullfight. A grid of 100 small lights glows downwards, reinforcing the atmosphere of eternal monotony and seclusion. The use of a revolver mirrors the successful ROH double bill from the same creative team Cavalleria rustic And Pagliacci.
There are clever touches. Putting on stage the woman who is powerful by her absence – Don José’s mother – in a black mantilla, with a card of death in hand, was not one of them. It was also not smart to portray poor, brave Micaëla as a saddo with a vest and glasses. Or perhaps this visual cliché has now come full circle and become a novelty. Regardless, the exceptional and lyrical Ukrainian soprano Olga Kulchynska triumphed in her ROH debut.
Musical norms provide this Carmen its sharpness and excitement, and make it worth seeing in upcoming cinema relays. Manacorda explored the fire and detail of the score, with the ROH orchestra, especially solo strings and woodwinds, being alert, subtle and expansive. Inevitably, the spoken dialogue – always a problem, and here in less than convincing French – gave a stop-start feel to the performance. That wasn’t Manacorda’s fault. His sense of pace and momentum were impressive. Kostas Smoriginas as Escamillo, unsavory in a lime green raw silk suit, Sarah Dufresne as Frasquita and Gabrielė Kupšytė as Mercédès led the large and admirable supporting ensemble. The ROH choir was joined by the ROH Youth Opera Company, a choir of nine to thirteen year olds who sang enthusiastically and captured our hearts.
Some of these young musicians may one day aspire to become members of the National Youth Choir, or its smaller offshoot, the National Youth Choir National Youth Chamber Choir: almost twenty talented 18 to 25 year olds, many of whom are embarking on a professional career. As part of the London Handel festival, the NYCC and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment performed Handel’s Four Coronation Anthems, interspersed with related works by living composers: Héloïse Werner, Anna Clyne, Ben Nobuto and Roderick Williams. The evening passed with skillful singing and playing led by Sofi Jeannin, starting with Handel’s Zadok the Priest.
The contrasts between the new works proved stimulating. (All but Clyne’s In Thy Beauty, from 2021, were world premieres.) Werner’s Rejoice! created five minutes of musical exuberance and verbal refraction, in which sounds and syllables united in recognizable words: all, people, rejoice. Nobuto’s face song! had a dance-like sampled energy, punchy and effective. Williams’ Exceeding Glad!, the seeds of which emerged from this singer-composer’s own involvement in King Charles’ coronation last year, seduced by its gaiety, including hand clapping, finger clicking and a vivid impression of tolling bells.
Starting with a tribute to the Hungarian composer Péter Eötvös, who died last month London Symphony Orchestra opened his latest LSO Futures/Panufnik Composers Scheme concert with Eötvös’ own Per Luciano Berio: short, beautiful, atmospheric, new to Britain. Without space to say more about this, I can only recommend checking out the latest composers, each conducted with clarity and empathy by François-Xavier Roth. They are: Christian Drew, Donghoon Shin and Stef Conner.
From watery, reverb-heavy doo-wop (I quote), to a virtuoso solo cellist (Rebecca Gilliver of the LSO) traveling through an exquisite aural nightscape, to a death metal-inspired wild bullet of sound, brutal yet harmonically radiant. this was a treat for inquiring ears. The concert ended with a spectacle in the form of Bartók’s Concerto for orchestra. How the second violins shot into the fugal finale at such a lightning pace without, I swear, moving their bows will remain a mystery.
Star ratings (out of five)
Carmen ★★★
National Youth Chamber Choir/OAE/Jeannin ★★★★
London Symphony Orchestra/Roth ★★★★★
• Carmen is at the Royal Opera House, London, until May 31, with a live cinema relay on May 1 at 6:45 PM and encore screenings from May 5 at 2:00 PM