ARTS Under the sun
JOHN HIGGINS
The Sadler's Wells Opera have begun to settle down at the Coliseum this season, and with the rather more comfortable look on their faces than when they first moved in have come the first suggestions of a genuine house style. The best of the new productions have an excellent directness about them, a determination to make plot and words as clear as possible without any coarse, rib- nudging underlining. And this, in a theatre out to bring a new public as well as an old one to opera, is how matters should be arranged.
The Valkyrie earlier in the year sorted out the struggle between gods and mortals far more lucidly than many a grander staging. And now we have John Copley's new Carmen in which the action is as direct and lucent as the sun's rays falling on the streets of Seville at noon. To appreciate this Carmen there is no need to know your Bizet, no need to have read Merimee, no need even for a synopsis. But it would be quite wrong to suggest that this is any way a sin►pliste approach to the opera. The clarity comes from a careful piec- ing together of character and atmosphere. A hint of this skill in assembling a production brick by brick came from the Traviata John Copley did for the Welsh Opera a few years ago. There was a feel for place and period which carried through to the singers, who gave far more convincing performances than might have been guessed from a preliminary glance at the cast list.
And so it is with the Coliseum Carmen. The Seville Square droops in the midday heat; it is a place for lounging and ambling. Sur la place. chacun passe. Chacun vient, chacun va , and to be sure they do. but at only half to a quarter speed. The roofs are for sprawling on and there the idle are stretched at full length. 1 he languor of the scene is summed up by the plump tart who sits on a high balcony gently, very very gently, fanning herself; on such a day trade cannot possibly be brisk.
Or at least not until the arrival of Carmen. In a master stroke of production the tart leaves her vantage point the moment Car- men arrives: the competition down below is too strong, there will be no eyes for the bal- cony, but the mere sight of Carmen might remind the local soldiery of their virility which has been sapped by the sun. Carmen is shown as the only person who can set this particular place alight, and she does so almost at once. The heat can either dull or inflame, and the fight in the cigarette factory with the girls in their petticoats tipping out into the open, bawling, screaming and struggling, seems a natural reaction to work- ing in a temperature probably up in the nineties. The scene also has a quite inten- tional sexiness, not so far away from that other stimulating exhibition of female wrest- ling in Zola's Germinal.
Much of the sexuality comes from the shape and person of Ann Howard, who has undergone a change of almost Pygmalion proportions in this production. Often before on stage she has seemed awkward, over con- scious of her height. As Carmen those six feet put her literally head and shoulders over the other women on.Mage. And, if that were tot advantage -enough4 dieleyes ash, the skirt swirls and the hips jut out in the most deliberate provocation. She is not a girl who waits to be asked; she just takes what she fancies and in this case it happens to be Don Jose. It is not the sultry approach of a Bumbry or the earthy one of a Lyne Dourian, but rather a direct and matter of fact dealing in sex.
The provocation is still there chez Lillas Pastia. For two or three minutes Ann Howard, black hair flowing over her shoulders. poses on a ladder, for all the world like Rita,Hayworth in her Cover Girl period. simply challenging Jose to ignore her. By Act 4 she is no longer the tart but the grande dame, elegant in her white finery—pleasure of pleasures. no red is used for this Carmen —attending the bullfight as the mistress of the principal attraction. Don Jose's dagger kills not a slut but someone quite close to looking like a lady.
The voice is warm and agile, getting around both Habanera and Scguidilla easily and cutting across the house without using a great deal of volume. The strength was re- served for the final act, musically easily the best of the evening. The spoken dialogue. using the Moody translation, was less success- ful, and contained some bizarre Ameri- canisms-- 'OK. so I'm from Navarre.' But these were minor blots on an excellent inter- pretation.
If David Hughes's Jose had shown half the vitality and imagination of Ann Howard. this Carmen would he on the way to being an outstanding performance. But, alas, he declined the opportunity and was content for half the evening to present Bizet's corporal as a stolid, dull Welsh rocker. The pseudo Spanish lick of black hair has no justification in Merimee. The point about Jose is that he is Basque and so considers himself superior to the enlisted men about him: `Cheveux blonds, yeux bleus, grande bouche, belles dents, les mains petites; une chemise fine, une veste de velours a houtons d'argent
Merimee gave his Jose a touch of Jean Marais and it is just about the only fault in the production that John Copley did not follow suit.
Although David Hughes did not put him- self out dramatically he did turn in some very good singing once the first act was over. The Flower Song had some of the ring and sheen that its greatest interpreters like Luccioni have brought to it. And that last act caught the power and excitcment provided by Carmen herself. Geoffrey Chard cut a very toreador-like figure as Fscamillo, all silver buckles, swagger and jutting out behind; he also managed the range of his Act 2 aria a good deal more competently than many a more famous baritone. Lorna Haywood pro- duced an interesting Micaela, quite a long way off the fey Little Red Riding Hood figure normally offered. This was a plucky girl, prepared for the rough manners of the Square and ready to follow Jose up to the rocky mountain retreat of the smugglers. Her aria, le dis, que rien ne m'epouvante seemed to overstate matters a bit, for thi' Micaela was a sturdy girl, sturdily sung.
The mountain act, which used a grey. sured slab of rock set quite near the futtni . suggesting-- presuMably OW net closing in on Jose and Carmen, was the only unsuccessful one of Stefanos Lazaridis's sets. Its justification could be a quick move into Act 4 without an interval. But the interval came nonetheless. It might be worth recon- sidering the pause before Carmen is revived at the beginning of next season.
When it comes back I trust that Charles Mackerras will be at the helm again. The sloth of the Act I music did not appeal much to his temperament, but thereafter the Sadler's Wells Orchestra played with more spring and vigour than I've heard for some time.
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