BWW Reviews: CARMEN, The Kings Head Theatre, April 10 2012

OperaUpClose (like opera) isn't for everyone. This innovative company's residency at The King's Head continues with Carmen, one of the best known of all operas - but perhaps not in this new English version by Rodula Gaitanou and Ben Cooper.

While the audience queue to channel through the narrow door to the theatre, the action starts up in the pub with Carmen (Christina Gill) a-flaunting and a-flirting with the punters, before security guard Jose (Christopher Diffey) intervenes and - wouldn't you know it - love sparks as their eyes meet. This little conceit wouldn't be a bad device since this Carmen is set in contemporary London and sung in English, with 21st century petty thieving and drug-dealing simmering in the background - and we are in Islington after all. Unfortunately, all that tension and wit is dissipated, as the audience files in and takes their seats. It's almost a surprise when Jose and Carmen pick up the action in the theatre.

What follows is a stripped down Carmen, with plenty of the familiar songs sung thrillingly close up (for OperaUpClose are as good as their word), the vocalists accompanied by piano (Elspeth Wilkins) and guitar (Rosie Hopkins), whose instruments are as bashed and thrashed as poor Carmen herself by the end of the show. Perhaps it's just a bit too stripped down - characters appear and sing and then disappear never to return and we never quite get to know Carmen's gang. What's lost in the gang is gained by the principals, with Ms Gill and Mr Diffey the focus of the production delivering passion in their acting and conviction in their singing. The end is as brutal as it is inevitable.

There's many will feel short-changed by this radical re-working of a classic, but that would be a misinterpretation of the work. This company has embraced opera as an art form to be staged in a small theatre at the back of a pub, in English (clunky though it is at times), casting young professional singers and charging prices that may entice those wondering about giving opera a chance. I'll see better Carmens than this I'm sure, but, had Adam Spreadbury-Maher and Robin Norton-Hale not had the vision to present Bizet (and Verdi and Puccini and plenty of other greats) in this way, I may never have seen a Carmen at all. And, given Carmen's heady mix of music and drama, I should see one - everyone should.    

Carmen continues at The King's Head until 12 May. 

 

 

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