A Riveting CARMEN at San Francisco Opera
Reviewed by James Roy MacBean
Georges Bizet’s Carmen was last seen here in 2019 in Francesca Zambello’s production, which is now revved. I attended the Saturday evening performance on November 16 at the War Memorial Opera House. Thankfully, unlike so many recent productions here of the standard opera reportory, this Carmen is not arbitrarily quirky or gimicky. While lively and full of movement, it is a largely traditional production. However, it offered one very arbitrary and gratuitous touch at the very beginning. Once the overture was over, very briskly led by conductor Benjamin Manis, ,a brief orchestral opening to Act I was accompanied by a dumbshow pantomime on a dark stage. A man dressed in white squats and seems to be in anguish. Then a man in uniform appears and grabs the man in white, rushing him offstage. Who these two men were supposed to be is anyone’s guess. This is no way to begin an opera when we have no idea who these dumbshow individuals are supposed to represent! It simply brings an unnecessary confusion to the opera as a whole. Seeing this, I shuddered, suspecting we were in for yet another quirky staging under Mathew Shilvock’s reign here as General Director. -more-
