Opera San Jose: Carmen

Carmen (Nikola Printz) and Don Jose
(Noah Stewart). Photos by Chris Hardy.

February 12, 2022

On the eve of the Super Bowl, the cast of OSJ’s Carmen seemed a little like a team that wasn’t quite ready for the kickoff. It was a shame, since the first act, with its population of tobacco ladies, soldiers and villagers, is usually bursting with energy. Perhaps, after two years without a full-length, live-audience production, it was a case of opening night jitters.

Well. Things changed quickly in the second act, as the scene moved to Lillas Pastia’s tavern. It’s not that this opera has never seen its touches of flamenco, but this was the real deal, a quartet of veterans from the Flamenco Society of San Jose, and they intended to raise the roof (or punch a hole in the floor). What ensued was so rowdy that conductor Joseph Marcheso was struggling to match tempos between his pit orchestra and the wild party going on upstairs. (Marcheso has compared conducting Carmen to keeping an ill-fitted sheet on a mattress, and this was an apt demonstration.)

Flamenco dancers in the Lillas Pastia scene.

In any case, once the party was finally revved up, the gifts of this particular cast began to show themselves. Working a little backward, let me first compliment bass-baritone Leo Radosavlevic, who brought a saucy humor to the ill-fated officer Zuniga. His drunken appearance at the tavern door, ready for a midnight foray at Carmencita, was hilarious. As for his later dispatch, which fits under the category of the opera’s many stage-director options, he was politely escorted outside by smugglers El Remendado and El Dancairo (Jared V. Esguerra and Rafael W. Porto), who then returned, cleaning their knives. (And shame on you heartless operagoers who would laugh at a man’s death!)

The smugglers also joined in on the Rossinian patter-quintet “Nous avons en tete une affaire,’ which has become my favorite little gem in this opera, singing along with Carmen, Frasquita (Teresa Castillo) and Mercedes (Stephanie Sanchez). That Berlioz could write anything, and it’s a shame we lost him so young.

Amalinaltzin De La Cruz and her friend Escamillo
(Eugene Brancoveanu).

The appearance of Escamillo the toreador brought to mind the night before, when I sat at my karaoke bar and watched a succession of men launch desperate Valentine’s Eve pitches at a pretty brunette. They would do well to watch baritone Eugene Brancoveanu, whose Escamillo is handsome but not vain, egotistical but generous, who knows when to make an advance and when to back off, and who even shares his scene with a cute little girl (Amalinaltzin De La Cruz) to show he’s good with children. Brancoveanu’s clean, rich tone is always a delight, and he also got the best outfit, a caped black-and-green suit (Alyssa Oania, costume coordinator).

Playing Micaela, soprano Anne-Marie MacIntosh seemed at first a little deep in her vibrato, particularly in the heartwarming duet about Jose’s mother, “Parle-moi de ma mere.” But there was plentiful payback in the famed mountain aria, “Je dis que rien ne m’epouvante,” in which that heaviness returned as power and passion.

Nikola Printz as Carmen

For every Carmen production, there is a different Carmen, the character - the part is so malleable and full of micro-choices. Mezzo Nikola Printz brings the same tonal clarity and deft phrasing that I so enjoyed in November’s Dido and Aeneas, but where this sense of moderation had its greatest effect was in the drama. In general, Carmen is a woman trapped between passion and survival, but Printz’s calm strength pulls the needle toward business. This Carmen is all about the welfare of her tribe, with romance serving as an irresistible recreation, sometimes useful, sometimes dangerous. (Printz also did quite well on the castanets, which can be a challenging aspect of the role.)

Don Jose is also a changeable figure, and in this production tenor Noah Stewart gives him a wide range. Stewart cuts a striking figure, which gives the character a strong starting point - a self-assured young man, devoted to his mother and loved by his hometown girl. This makes the mountain-scene switch into jealousy and competitiveness seem almost abrupt, and the knife-fight with Escamillo impressively fierce (with a little foreshadowing of OSJ’s next production, West Side Story). Vocally, Stewart possesses a strong lyric tone with just a bit of smoke on the edges. The combination makes it a potent carrier of emotion, most dramatically demonstrated in the Flower Song. Stewart’s rendition is heartbreaking and beautiful, the picture of a man giving in to a perilous romance as if he were approaching the gates of hell.

This ability to convey pathos also drove the final scene, making it as creepy and tense as anything produced by Hitchcock. Between the strength of Printz, the escalating desperation of Stewart’s Jose and the guidance of stage director Lillian Groag, this was a face-off propelled by an ever-tightening suspense.

Notes:

Under the category of stage-director options, the final killing was a neck-slash, achieved from behind as Carmen was climbing the steps, facing away from the audience. Quite effective, but I still think it could be more visceral. Marcheso’s orchestra shone in the lovely Act 3 entr’acte and the lively Act 4 entr’acte, the latter based on Spanish songs compiled by Manuel Garcia. The regular appearances of the fate theme (you’ll know it when you hear it) were accompanied by a mime. I’ve never seen this before - the rumbling minor chords and evil tarot cards are generally omen enough - but it was an interesting touch. The set design by Giulio Cesare Perrone was pretty standard, but I did like how the mountain boulders resembled Pinnacles National Park.

Through March 3 at the California Theatre, 345 S. First Street, San Jose. $55-$195. 408/437-4450, operasj.org. Vax plus booster, photo ID and mask required. 

Michael J. Vaughn is the author of 25 novels, including the opera novels Operaville and Gabriella's Voice, available at Amazon.com.