On paper, it looked promising. A fourth English National Opera revival of Calixto Bieito’s now classic 1970s-set production of one of the most bankable operas in the repertory. A cast of young British singers on the brink of stardom. A score that the chorus and orchestra could surely perform in their sleep, in the hands of a conductor who made an impressive UK debut at the Coliseum last year.
This Carmen got off to a good start, too. In the pit Clelia Cafiero plunged into Bizet’s overture at an exhilarating gallop, driving the orchestra as if she had hot-wired it. The details remained intact as the Toreador’s theme flashed past, the sound polished, brass gleaming proudly. After such near-reckless momentum, the heavy landing of the overture’s closing section – the strings scrubbing furiously as the opera’s dark side surfaced – was brutally effective orchestral drama.
But there are no dead certs in live performance and that initial intensity of musical focus dwindled rapidly. A few beautifully shaped wind solos couldn’t make up for swathes of unblended strings, or passages in which the orchestra parted ways with the singers on stage. Even the ENO chorus sounded out of sorts, most effective as its members strained at a rope barrier across the front of the stage to watch the bullfight in Act Four, their combined vocal wattage and dramatic presence as a mass of individuals prioritised over subtlety of tone.
In the title role, BBC New Generation artist Niamh O’Sullivan provided industrial quantities of sass, her creamy, covered mezzo compelling as she set about seducing all and sundry. Yet she was audibly held back by the English translation, its text awkwardly bolted on to Bizet’s vocal lines. The ensembles with her smuggler gang – fast, natty music – tripped over English words and finicky melodic writing alike, despite appealing turns from Harriet Eyley and Siân Griffiths as Carmen’s female sidekicks and Patrick Alexander Keefe’s powerful Dancaïre. Ava Dodd was an unusually tough, go-getting Micaela (her soprano generous if hard-edged), Cory McGee an unusually small-voiced Escamillo, most comfortable in his ultra-tender last encounter with Carmen. John Findon’s Don José was pitifully brutish, his huge tenor glossy at its best but strained elsewhere, periodically required to project from the back of the Coliseum’s vast stage.
In Bieito’s now extraordinarily noisy staging, however, much of this musical detail is overwhelmed. No car door goes unslammed, no surface unkicked as men shout and women scream. Passions always run high in Carmen’s Spain, but this revival is all volume, no chemistry. If Don José – desperate in the opera’s final scene – asks Carmen whether she still loves him and the audience laughs when she says no, something has gone badly wrong.
• At the Coliseum, London, until 5 November
