Review: Washington National Opera's CARMEN Satisfies

Washington National Opera began what may be one of its more artistically challenging seasons Saturday with the most crowd-pleasing production.

Before it brings in Philip Glass, Kurt Weill and the entire "Ring" cycle later in its 60th season, it began with Bizet's beloved CARMEN. Few operas are so often staged, not many boast as many enduring melodies. Just the prelude by the WNO orchestra, conducted by Evan Rogister, brought its best known songs, from "Habanera," to the "Toreador Song" - tunes known to the least knowledgable opera fan.

While it would be popular straight up, CARMEN is often the subject of varied approaches, settings and styles, if only to mix it up. In this production from the Canadian Opera Company featuring an array of French singers, the setting is shifted from Spain to 1940s Latin America, which doesn't make that much of a difference, as it still includes bullfights and Spanish-derived dance. What makes it all seem like a different world altogether is the thing that always stood out - everyone sings (and speaks, as when they occasionally do) in French.

That makes it true to the Bizet original and its libretto by Ludovic Halevy and Henri Meilhac. But the works been changed over the year since its Paris premiere 240 years ago, and somewhat streamlined in this production.

At its heart is a gypsy seductress who first cast a spell on one soldier before he's dropped for a bullfighter. There ought to have been other coping mechanisms for such a loss, but the soldier sticks to his knife and alas, nobody is there to help Carmen in the end from his wrath - even though they are in a crowded place, a bullfighting ring.

Logic and reason aren't the chief components of opera, but pageantry, color and music are and this "Carmen" has plenty of it. Its colorful backdrop in the set design by Michael Yeargan makes way, with a craggy crack for a sun-drenched gate outside a military encampment.

But before they do, a couple of dancers come out to animate in a Flamenco style the complex coupling that will occur. In that, Timo Nunez, plucked from the Fox competition "So You Think You Can Dance," and Fanny Ara are certainly welcome in the choreography of Sara Erde. But it's almost as if someone thinks the prelude alone would not hold an audience's attention (though if any prelude would, it's this one).

CARMEN is a challenging enough piece that singers alternate nights in four of the principal roles. On opening night, with no less than a Supreme Court Justice in attendance, it was French mezzo-soprano Clementine Margaine, who has become something of a Carmen careerist - she's already played the role in Berlin, Munich, Rome and Dallas and is set to continue it in New York, Chicago, Naples, Toronto and back to Berlin (Will this woman ever learn her lesson? Will she learn not how to lure hapless men to her side?).

Margaine reels her men in not through mere appearance, but the beauty of her controlled voice (French mezzo-soprano Geraldine Chauvet steps in on alternate nights).

Opposite her, American tenor Bryan Hymel, in his Kennedy Center debut, has no choice; he soars in his sighs and yearnings as Don Jose (Rafael Davilia, last with the WNO in "The Force of Destiny" and "Norma" shares the role).

A standout opening night, however, was American soprano Janai Brugger as the jilted Micaela (she alternates with Jacqueline Echols).

American baritone Michael Todd Simpson is just right as the assured toreador (he alternates the role with another familiar face at WNO, Aleksey Bogdanov). And fitting roles are found for members of the WNO's Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist program (who will comprise the entire cast Oct. 2).

Director E. Loren Meeker really fills up the stage, though, with scores of members of the Washington National Opera Chorus and its Children's Chorus as well as 10 of its dancers.

Yeargan's sets, effectively lit by Robert Wierzel, get even better as the opera goes on, with the iron spikes of the city square making way for the intriguing detritus of the gypsy camp and finally to the smooth lines and white sky of a cross section of the bullfighting ring, where while crowds cheer above, Don Jose commits his dirty deed below. And where are the security guards, singing or not?There isn't much that needs to be done to "Carmen" to make audiences love it; they love it already. And they'll go out of this one like they've gone out of others, still humming those songs.

CARMEN continues at the Kennedy Center, 2700 F St. NW, through Oct. 2. Tickets available from 202-467-4600 or online.

Photo: Clémentine Margaine as Carmen and Michael Todd Simpson as Escamillo. Photo by Scott Suchman.

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