Bizet’s Carmen, with J'Nai Bridges as Carmen (center), Natalie Image as Frasquita, Ashley Dixon as Mercédès, and the San Francisco Opera Chorus | Credit: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera
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The argument with José that leads to her death was performed on a bare stage here, Bridges seemed free to fully inhabit the complexity of Carmen, singing with dignity and strength, and asserting her independence even while realizing that she will die for it. The first time she invited an infatuated lover to put his head under her skirt was annoying repeated, it was offensive.īridges was at her best when the production gave Carmen her own space.
The staging kept pushing Bridges’s Carmen back into obvious, stereotyped gestures. Her singing was repeatedly impeded by stage business, as in the “Habanera” (L’amour est un oiseau rebelle), where the song had to compete with multiple distractions from the constantly moving crowds of guards, cigarette workers, children, and passers-by. Mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges acted the lead with an admirably gutsy athleticism, but her voice, while highly expressive, did not project well. The role of Carmen did not fare as well, for obvious reasons. Anita Hartig as Micaëla, Matthew Polenzani as Don José and J'Nai Bridges in the title role of Bizet’s Carmen | Credit: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera Hartig’s duet with José in Act I and her poignant solo in the third act (“Je dis, que rien ne m’épouvante”) provided much-needed moments of vocal lyricism and dramatic nuance.
Acting and singing, she was consistently clear and thoughtful. The production was most convincing when it was least obviously “directed.” As Micaëla, the country girl who rivals Carmen for the love of José, Romanian soprano Anita Hartig sang the finest and most compelling role of the evening. And “Gypsies” need to be shown doing something other than come-hither dances on a tavern table.
José does not need to mock-rape Carmen before killing her. Carmen’s eroticism does not need to make her into a whore, dipping a flower over her crotch before throwing it to her lover. These are the very issues of American life in 2019, and they need to be engaged, but not through an investment in stereotypes. Like many operas, Carmen is deeply problematic - it enacts the murder of a woman isolated by her gender and her race, killed because of her sexual frankness and independence by a man who is an abusive and violent obsessive and at the same time the “hero” of the opera. Bizet's Carmen, with the San Francisco Opera Dance Corps and J'Nai Bridges as Carmen | Credit: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera
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The costumes, and the production as a whole, seemed designed to conjure up an orientalist fantasy, full of exotic “Gypsies” and silk-emblazoned bullfighters, rather than any real or imagined setting in which the tragedy might make sense to us. Again and again, intrusive stage direction buried the drama with busy crowd scenes, distracting from the music and the meaning, and even obscuring the action (at key moments like Carmen’s escape from arrest in Act I). But the production that opened Wednesday at the War Memorial Opera House - a reworking of Francesca Zambello’s 2008 design for the Royal Opera House, London - had little to say to our place or time. One would think that a company like San Francisco Opera would commit to rethinking the opera in each new presentation. If there were ever a chestnut, Carmen is it. Since 1927, San Francisco Opera has mounted 34 productions of the opera - approximately one every three years. Kyle Ketelsen as Escamillo and J’Nai Bridges in the title role of Bizet’s Carmen | Credit: Cory Weaver/San Francisco OperaĮven those with a passing acquaintance with opera know Carmen: the narrative of seduction, betrayal, desperation, and murder the Habanera and the Toreador song the legacy of great mezzo-sopranos who have made the lead role synonymous with erotic appeal and musical passion.
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