John Fulljames’s new production for Scottish Opera sets Bizet’s 1875 work as a true-crime thriller in 1970s Spain – the twilight years of Franco’s regime, when Spain found itself at the threshold of transformative political and social change.
Working with Christopher Cowell’s translation, Fulljames returns to Prosper Mérimée’s 1845 source novella. Mérimée’s text begins with the narrator’s meeting with Don José, who recounts the story of his relationship with Carmen; Fulljames’s production opens in a similar vein, with Don José being interviewed about the murder by a female police inspector (actor Carmen Pieraccini in a non-speaking role). The events of the opera play out in flashback as José delivers his confession. Pieraccini’s inspector is an engaging counterpoint to Carmen, a device that also allows Fulljames to make use of the work’s often-awkward sections of spoken dialogue, cut in most stagings.
As in the original, Carmen works in a Seville cigarette factory, and everyone here smokes like a chimney. James Farncombe’s lighting design creates a nicotine-stained, sepia-tinted colour palette that bathes the stage in a wistful filmic glow. Projections (designed by Will Duke) show us the documentary evidence assembled by the inspector and bring additional interest and texture to Sarah Beaton’s otherwise minimalist set.
As José and making his Scottish Opera debut, Indian-American tenor Alok Kumar is a knockout. Though always technically assured, his singing resonates with the raw pathos of a man on the edge – and his acting in the spoken dialogue sections is equally compelling.
Justina Gringytė, however, is less plausible as Carmen and appears uncomfortable singing in English (despite having sung the role with English National Opera). The sound is swallowed backwards, and some of her vowels are so distorted that the text is at times almost unintelligible. Gringytė’s apparent discomfort also limits her physically, with the famous act one Habanera feeling particularly flat, and the chemistry with Kumar’s José is not there, even in the normally ardent first encounter. Despite Christina Cunningham’s alluring costumes, which see Carmen make successive changes from a cool leather jacket over her work clothes through to a traditional red flamenco dress, it is difficult to tell who Gringytė’s Carmen is.
Phillip Rhodes is an arresting Escamillo, with vocal bravado befitting a toreador, while Hye-Youn Lee is a suitably chaste Micaëla, albeit in a role that offers scant opportunity to demonstrate her full vocal prowess. Australian-Chinese conductor Dane Lam leads Scottish Opera’s orchestra with vim and swagger, and the chorus is on top form throughout. However, without a charismatic and convincing Carmen, it is difficult to feel too passionate about this performance.