Bizet – Carmen

Carmen – Rinat Shaham
Don José – Leonardo Capalbo
Micaëla – Jeanine De Bique
Escamillo – Eric Greene
Frasquita – Jasmine Habersham
Mercédès – Laura Vila
Moralès – Toni Marsol
Le Dancaïre – Jan Antem
Remendado – Carlos Cosías
Zuniga – Felipe Bou

Cor infantil – VEUS Amics de la Unió, Cor del Gran Teatre del Liceu, Orquestra Simfònica del Gran Teatre del Liceu / Josep Pons.
Stage director – Calixto Bieito.

Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona, Catalonia.  Sunday, January 14th, 2024.

When starting to think about writing this review, I reflected on how many theatres have mounted Calixto Bieito’s production of Carmen over the years.  After all, it has been seen in houses from San Francisco to Boston, Paris, France to Oslo, Vienna to Palermo, and many more in between.  There’s a reason for this.  It’s simply because this staging is just such a visceral, engaging evening in the theatre that speaks directly to so many.  Bieito takes us from comedy to the ultimate tragedy, he highlights inequality in society, while at the same time giving the audience something extremely vivid to watch.  Above all, he puts the music and his singers first, with the simple aim of making us feel – something that distinguishes a truly great stage director.

As is frequently the case here at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, this run was double-cast.  In the title role, Rinat Shaham replaced the originally-cast Varduhi Abrahamyan very much at the last minute, taking over the entire run, of which tonight was one of the latter shows, opposite Leonardo Capalbo’s Don José.  The house has been pretty much sold out for this revival, an extremely welcome sight and showing that the Liceu is now very much on the right track after a few lean years.  Bieito’s staging is as powerful now as it was twenty-five years ago when it was first performed here in Catalonia.  He sets the action in what could be Mellila or Ceuta, the bare stage populated with a single flagpole and phone booth in Act 1, smugglers’ automobiles in Acts 2 and 3, the addition of an Osborne bull in Act 3, while Act 4 is set on an empty stage that resembles a bullring.  What struck me with the capacity audience tonight, is how many seemed to be seeing it for the first time – the shock reaction of the audience as the Osborne bull was tipped over at the start of Act 4 was genuine, as indeed were the titters as the naked bullfighter did his dance in the Act 3 prelude.

This is a world of brutality and poverty.  Indeed, the poverty was even more potent this time around – whether in the group of soldiers vandalizing the phone booth to get some coins, or the group of hungry children holding out bowls in the hope of some food.  In a way, being a smuggler, able to brandish a box with the latest flat screen TV seems as much an act of resistance as anything else.  The way that Bieito equates money with power is extremely potent – particularly in how José hands Carmen a wad of bills at the end of Act 2.  Yet, what is even more compelling here is the inescapable impact of toxic masculinity.  This is an opera that ends with the titular character being murdered, something that she of course foresees in the cards.  What was even more apparent than before, is how tragic both Carmen and José’s destines are, particularly in the sheer physicality and chemistry that Shaham and Capalbo brought to their roles.  His tragedy is that he desperately wants to love, but is unable to tame his most bestial instincts, in a society that treats women as a commodity.  Her tragedy is that she is a free spirit, fully in command of her sexuality, in a world where men only wish to tame it.  The way that Bieito initially sets up the soldiers dry humping the factory women as high jinks, the audience finding it funny, yet showing us that the natural outcome of treating women this way is murder, is something I found exceptionally compelling.  Indeed, I don’t think I have been moved by the final scene as much as I was tonight, the sheer tragedy of these two people brought out with such immediacy with completely gripping acting.  Capalbo’s repeated entreaties of ‘il est temps encore’, even though he was mishandling Carmen, felt so devastating because there seemed to be absolutely no way out for these two people from the fate that was in those cards.

Musically, this was also a very strong revival.  Shaham has sung Carmen over two hundred times over the years and her familiarity with the role was clear.  She’s a formidable actor, but she’s above all also an exceptional musician.  This meant that she was able to manipulate an extremely natural rubato in her habanera, making it sound even more erotic than usual.  The voice is grounded in a deliciously warm and full chestiness, with a juicy middle and fearless top, the registers integrated.  Her diction was clear, making her character even more compelling as a result.  She found a desolate darkness to the tone in the card scene, built on a very slow tempo, that seemed to portend the darkest of fates.  Throughout her vocalism and physicality were unstinting.  There’s a reason why Shaham is a redoubtable interpreter of this iconic role and that was extremely clear tonight.

Capalbo gave us a harrowing view of a man’s total disintegration.  His acting and vocalism were so immediate and so gripping, helped by his impeccable sung French.  He was equally fearless in that final scene, everything based in the text, each moment seemingly more desperate than the last.  The anger that he found in the tone for those closing phrases of Act 3 as he left Carmen was extremely apparent.  His flower aria was sung with generosity and an easy line, although I do wish that he had pulled back on the tone for his B-flat which was sung in full voice.  He also blended most agreeably with Jeanine De Bique’s Micaëla in their duet.

De Bique has clearly worked on her sung French diction, which was much clearer than on the previous occasions that I have heard her.  Her soprano has an attractive brightness, well-placed around a silvery core.  I did find that the voice didn’t quite optimally spin in her aria, suggesting that it takes her to her current limits, but the beauty of tone she produced was undeniable.  She’s also a spirited actor.  Escamillo is an awkward role to sing and Eric Greene confidently navigated the tessitura, even if the top tapers off somewhat.  The voice is also somewhat wiry and lacking in amplitude, although he was an imposing stage presence.

The remaining roles reflected the quality one would expect at this historic address.  Jasmine Habersham was a very welcome surprise as Frasquita, with a ringing top and fabulously extrovert stage presence.  Indeed, I hope to hear her Micaëla at some point.  Laura Vila sang Mercédès in a dark, dusky mezzo.  Jan Antem was a firm-voiced Dancaïre with superb French diction, while Carlos Cosías sang the Remendado in a nicely forwardly-placed tenor.  Both Toni Marsol and Felipe Bou were gregarious presences as Moralès and Zuniga.

Josep Pons conducted an orchestra on terrific form.  From silky strings to rich, rounded brass.  I had a seat towards the front of the Platea on the right, which meant that the sound was more brass-heavy than would have been the case further back – though it was most definitely worth it to be able to see this staging up close.  Pons’ tempi felt ideal for the most part, daringly slow in the card scene, with the Act 4 prelude offering some undeniable rhythmic momentum.  The choruses were on excellent form – the sopranos and mezzos generously vibrating yet still disciplined in sound, the children delightfully raucous.  The adults had been well prepared by Pablo Assante and the children by Josep Vila i Jover. 

This really was a magnificent evening in the theatre and an ideal way to kick off a year of opera going.  Bieito’s Carmen has lost nothing of its power over the years – indeed it feels even more influential now.  Not only does he give us a tremendous show, I’ll never be able to see the Act 4 chorus in any other way now with the choruses jumping around with glee, he also makes the tragedy at its heart even more realistic and believable.  As so often with him, he presents the world as it is, in all its difficult contradictions.  In Shaham and Capalbo, the Liceu really does offer a most compelling central duo, and this revival was very well sung on the whole.  The audience responded at the close with an extremely generous ovation.  I left the house into the night feeling thrilled and invigorated in the way only the best evenings at the opera succeed in doing.