Daily Archives: 16 February, 2019

Bizet: Carmen

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Kings’s Head Theatre, 13 February 2019

This is Bizet’s Carmen as you’ve never seen it before. Reworked for 2019 Britain, it opens in an NHS hospital. And it’s a bijoux version simply pared down to a 90 minute three hander love (or something) triangle. Musically, under the charismatic direction of Juliane Gallant from piano, it’s spikily strong and the new translation by Mary Franklin, who also directs, and Ashley Pearson is very funny.

What an inspired idea to have mobile phones playing Carmen tunes and blending them in. At one point the radio is playing in a bar and the presenter is announcing and playing extracts from Carmen. Dan D’Souza, a deliciously gravelly baritone as Escamillio, becomes a posturing football star (“Can I get a cup of coffee, ‘cause I’m not really fit to drive my maserati”) who sings the Toreador song badly in a karaoke bar as a way of showing off to Carmen.  When Carmen is singing the Habenera, Jose bounces a rubber ball in perfect rhythm to provide a gentle percussive underpinning. The whole piece is a light, witty enjoyable concept and full of imaginative ideas until, of course, the last five minutes because, as well all know, it can’t end happily.

Ellie Edmonds (alternating at other performances with Jane Monari as Carmen) has a rich warm singing voice which she uses crisply. She sails adeptly through all the big numbers and acts convincingly which is especially important in the intimate space of the King’s Head. The absurd hip-hop dance she does to Bizet’s music at the beginning of Act II is a moment to treasure too.

Roger Patterson sang Jose on press night – the role is shared with Mike Bradley – and brings a great deal of appropriate tenor angst and passion to it. He is compelling, first as a disillusioned NHS nurse coming to the end of his shift, then as a young man in love, changed after three months in prison and eventually as a thwarted, angry man.

This is a feminist take on Carmen. Written and directed by an all-female team it presents Carmen not as a femme fatale but rather as unfortunate, very plausible, young woman who makes a few fatally bad choices. I rather like that angle.

Susan Elkin

ENO: The Merry Widow

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English National Opera presents a sparkling new production of the 20th century’s most popular operetta

One of the most successful musical comedies in history returns to the London Coliseum stage in March, in a brand new version fizzing with wit and invention. Old Vic Associate Director Max Webster makes his ENO debut with the company’s first new staging in more than a decade of the beloved 1905 Viennese operetta. The original libretto that has delighted audiences across the world for more than century is given a new English translation by dramatist April de Angelis and lyricist Richard Thomas.

This operetta enjoyed unprecedented popularity and was performed an estimated half a million times across the world in its first 60 years. It acted as the bridge that would lead from opera to the rise of 20th century musical theatre. The story of the wealthy widow Hanna Glawari and her pursuit by men trying to keep her wealth in their bankrupt Balkan nation forms a classic romantic comedy, containing some of the most beloved music in opera including the Merry Widow Waltz and the ‘Vilja Song’.

Max Webster is Associate Director at the Old Vic, where his 2015 production of The Lorax garnered universal acclaim (‘the best family show since Matilda’ – 5*, The Guardian). His theatrical style with its ‘singular sense of the carnivalesque’ (WhatsonStage) is now brought to bear on the ENO comic opera tradition that brought Cal McCrystal’s standing-room-only Iolanthe to the Coliseum in 2018.

Hanna is sung by Sarah Tynan, one of the sopranos most associated with ENO, in her second lead role of the season after 2018’s rapturously received Lucia in Lucia di Lammemoor (‘exquisite’ – The Daily Telegraph). In 2017 her Rosina in The Barber of Seville (‘impeccable’– The Independent) and the title role of Partenope (‘dazzling’ – WhatsOnStage) showed her comic abilities to great effect. An alumna of the ENO Harewood Artist programme, she is fast becoming acknowledged as one of the UK’s leading sopranos.

Nathan Gunn makes his ENO debut as Hanna’s former lover Danilo. One of America’s most in-demand baritones, he has ‘everything that today’s opera fans look for in a singer: a beautiful voice, first-class acting and a great sense of humour’ (Bachtrack). He previously sang the role with the Metropolitan Opera, New York in 2014, opposite Renée Fleming.

ENO house favourite Andrew Shore sings the scheming diplomat Baron Zeta, adding another great buffo role to his ENO roster that has included hilarious turns as The Lord Chancellor in 2018’s Iolanthe (‘patter-perfect’ – WhatsonStage), Major-General Stanley in 2015’s The Pirates of Penzance, many Bartolos in The Barber of Seville, and more than thirty other productions.

Nicholas Lester returns to the ENO stage following a successful run as Marcello in La bohème (‘oozes vocal charm’ – The Guardian) to sing the Vicomte Cascada, while Jamie MacDougall sings Raoul.

Estonian conductor Kristiina Poska makes her ENO debut with this production, as well as her debut with a UK opera company. She is known on the continent for her distinguished career at the Komische Oper Berlin where she was First Kapellmeister from 2011 to 2016, winning the Deutscher Dirigentenpreis in 2013. From the 2019/20 season she will be the Music Director at Theater Basel.

 

Set design is by Ben Stones, who previously designed Max Webster’s Twelfth Night at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in 2014. This marks his operatic debut after designs for productions at the National, Young Vic, Almeida and Bush theatres as well as Burberry fashion shows.

Costume design is by Esther Bialas, whose designs were last seen at ENO for La traviata in 2018. She is known on the continent for her extensive work at Komische Oper Berlin with Barrie Kosky. Lighting design is by Bruno Poet, whose ENO work includes Akhnaten, Satyagraha and Aida.