Longborough Festival Opera: Carmen

Monday 15th June 2009

Crackerjack rating: 9 / 10.

Three years ago Longborough Opera staged a production of Bizet's Carmen whose raw emotion and vibrancy stunned everyone.

This year sees a revised version of Alan Privett's production with the Canadian soprano, Maria Coulis, again singing the title role. The impact is every bit as powerful as before. Maria portrays Carmen as a dark, sensuous femme fatale who delights in her power to attract men.

However, this power becomes a liability when a simple soldier becomes besotted with her and she is unable to fend off his attentions. Australian Dwayne Jones is the hapless Don Jose who finds himself drawn into Carmen's web and turns his back on both his career and the homely Micaela to join the band of smugglers.

When Carmen tires of him and transfers her attentions to the toreador Escamillo, he goes berserk and resorts to brute force. The encounters between Dwayne and Maria are searing in their intensity and drive the action along to its tragic end.

Their characterisation is so true to life that it is impossible not to sympathise with their plight.

Dimitrie Lazich is superb as the toreador Escamillo whose sensuous good looks assure him of pop star status among the girls. Lisa Ann Robinson offered a good contrast as the demure Micaela, and her singing won her a well deserved ovation.

Bizet's opera is awash with great melodies and it was a treat to hear them sung with such polish and in impeccable French accents. The excellent supporting cast and chorus, expertly choreographed by Isabel Baquero, were instrumental in conveying a sense of atmosphere whether as smugglers in the mountains or as the crowd watching the procession to the bull fight. And there were some magical musical interludes from the orchestra conducted by Jeremy Silver.

Carmen returns to Longborough in the middle of July. In the meantime, productions of The Marriage of Figaro and Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream take to the stage.

Roger Jones