REVIEW: Carmen gets a gritty makeover in Mercury Opera production
The last time I was at Chez Pierre, about 25 years ago, I covered a mud wrestling match between two female behemoths. The venerable Edmonton institution was founded by a gentle, cultured Belgian fellow named Pierre Couchard. The club was the first in Edmonton to go topless (and then bottomless), introduce male nudity, stage the Miss Nude Edmonton contest and receive the attention of the police department when they raided the place.
Now this traditional showcase of maidens with names like Bre, Britz, Serenity and Mya is home to that fiery Latino seductress and ultimate world-class bad girl, Carmen – bump and grind meets Grand Opera. Bizet’s opera, possibly the most popular in the world, is a production of Edmonton’s adventurous Mercury Opera – a company whose motto is “All the world’s a stage and we’re using every inch of it.” The production begins on Jasper Avenue in the landmark Commodore Cafe for Act 1 and then moves up the street to Chez Pierre for the remainder of the evening. It runs until August 15.
Mercury Opera was founded by Darcia Parada, born in Edmonton but who, as an operatic talent, has performed (and recorded) all over the world. The company began in New York in 1999 and established quite a reputation for staging opera in unexpected places in the Big Apple. Parada moved to Edmonton to continue the company’s enterprising ways by staging operas in various locations, from back alleys to the Edmonton River Queen paddle wheeler – with the audience on the riverbank. Venues included an earlier production of La Boheme in Chez Pierre. “It’s a great location – an immersive black box. There are lots of entrances and exits,” enthuses Parada.
The company’s make-up is fluid and distinguished – with artists from New York, Latin America and Edmonton. The idea of an international cast coming together for a new production bears no fear for opera companies. That is the way that most of them operate.
Carmen has proven to be one of the most conducive of operas for embellishments. It has survived quite a number of movies, award-winning Olympic demonstrations (Katrina Witt), Ice Spectacles (Brian Orser), an Oscar Hammerstein II Broadway show, a ballet, a flamenco version – even Carmen: A Hip Hopera, starring Beyonce.
Act One establishes the characters and tends to be smaller. The evening begins in the intimate confines of the Commodore Cafe promptly at 7 pm as the servers suddenly break, full-throated, into Bizet’s glorious music. They continue to flog the coffee and pie (Carmen herself wiped our table on opening night) as the opera unfolds. This may not be a Metropolitan Opera production, but the international cast of blue-ribbon performers acquits itself with distinction – filling the small space with booming, classically trained voices and some expressive, close-up acting. Producer-director Parada’s ingenious staging is obvious throughout the evening, allowing the 11 person cast to satisfactorily fill in for a huge orchestra, chorus and many characters. Her staging at the tiny Commodore is particularly inventive and quite funny. Carmen is arrested and a cop goes outside to phone for backup – you can see him through the window. Sure enough, a few minutes later, a car arrives to take her, hand-cuffed, to the hoosegow.
At the Commodore the performance is accompanied by the support of music director Shannon Hiebert. It is only as the evening progresses and the whole show moves to Casa Pedro (Chez Pierre) where woodwinds, brass and other instruments are added, that you realize the enormity of her task.
Gone is the traditional Spanish setting. This Carmen begins in El Paso, and later moves to Juarez, Mexico. The smugglers of the original are now a drug cartel. Once again, the naive Don Jose (Boris Derow – Canada) abandons his childhood sweetheart, Micaela (Elise Noyes – Edmonton) ,and his job as a Customs and Immigration Officer, to run off with the seductress Carmen (Laura Virella – Puerto Rico). The fickle siren then abandons Jose to conduct a wild affair with the celebrated bull-rider Escamillo (Jorge Luis Trabanco – Brazil). Driven to madness, at the rodeo final the deranged Don Jose and a rebellious Carmen come face to face for one last time, leading to the tragic climax.
How does the opera fare in all this? Quite well, actually. As an actor, Derow manages to keep a degree of sympathy for his Don Jose, overcoming his obvious psychotic obsession and whining jealousy, to give the poor cuckold some gravitas. On opening night he overcame some vocal problems to deliver a strong acting performance backed by a strong tenor voice. The sweet-voiced Noyes’ Micaela suffers decorously and is quite moving in the role. Trabanco’s Escamillo is a robust cowboy, and after his show-stopping paeon to everything virile, The Toreador’s Song – you can see how Carmen is attracted to his manly ways. There is no mechanical bull for this cowboy.
As Carmen, Virella is sensual, uninhibited and liberated – a Carmen for our times. You can see why mezzo-sopranos love to play her. In an art form that often demands pretty singing in demure roles, Carmen is a force of nature. She’s a vixen, strong in her own power, unafraid of conventional attitudes. Virella’s high voltage sexuality is almost overpowering. After this performance the cops may feel constrained to raid the premises again.
Varismo, sex, soaring arias, a tender love torn asunder, madness and murder as, at the end, a ruined man cries over the body of his slain lover, “Ah! Carmen! ma Carmen adorée!”
Who could ask for more of an evening of opera?
The performances at the Commodore/Chez Pierre will be held on Aug. 1-3, Aug. 7-10, and Aug. 14-15, beginning at 7 pm.
Because kids will not be allowed in Chez Pierre there will be a matinee concert performance (kids under 10 are free) at Have Mercy on Gateway Boulevard on Sunday, August 4 at 3 pm.
This production of Carmen is also on the move. There will be a performance at the Last Chance Saloon in Wayne, Alberta (near Drumheller) on Aug 11 at 7:30 pm; and a fully staged performance at The Palomino Smokehouse in downtown Calgary on August 17 at 8 pm.
See the details at the Mercury Opera website.
