Review: ‘Carmen,’ Boldly Rewritten as Therapy for a Modern Man
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Version 0 of 1. AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France — At the beginning of Dmitri Tcherniakov’s remarkable new production of Bizet’s “Carmen” at the Aix Festival here, the audience is warned that “tonight’s performance contains scenes that may seem like actual danger. Please be aware that they are part of the show.” Such a disclaimer may be wise reassurance in these jittery times. But it is also a welcome promise: This daring Russian director plans to find some particularly modern anxiety in a work that has become dulled by overexposure. Boldly rewriting the opera’s dialogue to accommodate his concept, Mr. Tcherniakov presents “Carmen” as a large-scale role-play, a novel bit of psychotherapy for a numb modern man. This man is played, with a deeply furrowed brow, by the American tenor Michael Fabiano, making a formidable debut as Don José, the soldier who falls for the headstrong Gypsy Carmen and, when spurned, kills her. Like an opera-themed episode of “Black Mirror,” Mr. Tcherniakov’s production locks its characters in a mysterious but almost identifiable world. So Mr. Fabiano isn’t exactly playing Don José, at least not at first. In a spoken introduction before the overture begins, he is an emotionally withdrawn modern man, brought to the lobby of a clinic (the cold, pointedly impersonal set is by Mr. Tcherniakov) by his prim wife. As a result of a therapist’s description of his social media presence, he is prescribed an enactment of “Carmen” to restore his ability to feel. Mr. Tcherniakov (who was cheered at his curtain call by a largely French audience, despite his staging’s provocative alterations of a French classic) implies that we turn to the excessive passions and violence of “Carmen” — and perhaps opera in general — because they offer something visceral that modern life does not. But he is presenting a cautionary tale, not an escape. This Don José signs a release, hands over his wallet and phone and, still in the lobby, is soon surrounded by a chorus of suit-wearing men whose name tags identify them as soldiers. They guide him through the story of the opera, a plot in which he participates first with reluctance, then with increasing enthusiasm and, finally, with desperation. The stage is shorn of the usual Gypsies and bullfighters; Don José and the clinic’s employees, reading from scripts, embody archetypes in a fantasy of masculine revenge. At one point, heavily armed police storm the stage (hence that audience warning), prompting what looks like genuine sympathy for Carmen from Don José, and congratulations from his therapist (Pierre Grammont, in a speaking role). Some of the characters seem to realize that Don José might be getting carried away and suggest that they stop, but the therapist insists that they continue. While Mr. Tcherniakov has rewritten the dialogue to allow for these twists, the score is intact; it even contains several passages that are often trimmed. Even as the staging deconstructs the opera’s plot, it seems to perpetuate the sacred status of the music. Given a crisp, sometimes frantic reading by the conductor Pablo Heras-Casado, leading the Orchestre de Paris, its familiar sound keeps the characters trapped in the ritual they’re acting out. We’re detached a bit, too, by some mocking of operatic (and specifically “Carmen”-related) conventions. Guns shoot smiley-face flags; the male chorus lip-syncs the children’s chorus music and does silly choreography. As Carmen, the mezzo-soprano Stéphanie d’Oustrac is cool and careless, late on her first entrance and too inept to pull the traditional flower from her hair to throw to Don José. (He finally disentangles it for her and gives it back; she throws it and misses; he finally just picks it up.) Wearing a jumpsuit and lounging with abandon, Carmen offers to this alienated Don José the opposite of the wife who has taken him to the clinic (and who sings Micaëla, the third side of the opera’s love triangle). At first, in a playful Habanera, Ms. D’Oustrac’s earthy mezzo skated on top of the music. As Carmen wore down Don José’s defenses, however, her voice deepened and grew in power. Mr. Fabiano’s Don José is ultimately not very different from those found in many a traditional “Carmen,” though the claustrophobia of this staging increases the standard intensity. His glowering demeanor is at odds with his sensitive, vibrant lyric tenor. Only in his Act II “Flower Aria” does Mr. Fabiano’s presence allow for some introspection, a welcome relief. In the dramatic finale, he pushes his voice to its limits. Mr. Tcherniakov has a convenient escape hatch: Sometimes his therapist-performers become visibly bored with their script. This allows the production to cruise through sections that don’t clearly intersect with the concept. Mr. Tcherniakov is not well equipped to deal with the bullfighter Escamillo (given a macho interpretation by the cigar-chomping baritone Michael Todd Simpson) and his relationship with Carmen, and the production loses some steam when this interaction takes center stage. Mr. Tcherniakov, however, has more tricks up his sleeve. Don José is encouraged to leave the clinic by Micaëla (the silvery and precise but monochromatic soprano Elsa Dreisig), but he refuses. As the final act opens, he witnesses a silent, look-alike successor going through the opening steps of the same therapy: soldiers with name tags, factory workers and so on. In a hair-raising, relatively conventional staging of the final scene, the story ends as it always does, with Don José’s stabbing Carmen. But that’s not, in fact, the end. In a chilling epilogue, Carmen rises from the dead; the knife was only a prop. Don José has passed the final stage of his therapy with flying colors, and his doctor rewards him with a huge bouquet of flowers. The clinic’s staff is too excited to notice that the treatment didn’t work: The man they think they have cured is still locked in his own head, seemingly unable even to hear their praise, still believing he killed Carmen. Mr. Tcherniakov’s vision is thoroughly dark, and finds no easy solutions in the past for the problems of the present. Even if your Facebook presence is as bleak as Don José’s in this staging, living in an opera may not be the answer. |