Carmen, Livermore Valley Opera, Oct. 6 2013

It was over the hills to Livermore for a performance of Carmen by one of the area’s fine opera companies, where I’ve enjoyed some good performances. Unfortunately this was not one of them.

There was no problem with the sets; they were true to the time and place. The first act featured a fairly small town square of adobe buildings to the right and left, with brick quoins. To the rear was a low wall, beyond which we could see more distant buildings. The tobacco factory was hidden out of sight to the left, and the cigarette girls made their entrance in the gap between the building on the left and the low wall at the rear. Act 2 in the tavern continued the adobe-and-brick theme, with a rustic table and a couple of chairs in the middle. Act 3, the smugglers’ camp, was set among rocks, with some of the brick-and-adobe corners left over from the previous acts. Act 4, at the bull ring, was dominated by a large steel double gate set within an archway. Completely conventional, nothing dramatic, but nothing offensive either.

Our cast: 
Carmen: Cybele Gouverneur
Don Jose: Christopher Bengochea
Escamillo: Eugene Brancoveanu
Micaëla: Christie Hageman
Zuniga: Efrain Solis
Le Remendado: Michael Desnoyers
Le Dancaïre: Bernardo Bermudez
Morales: Juan Donyea Dunn
Frasquita: Elena Galvan
Mercedes: Nikola Printz
Conductor: Alexander Katsman
Director: Eugene Brancoveanu
 
This was the first time that I had heard Christie Hageman after she took second place in the 2013 Irene Dalis Vocal Competition. Her first-act aria was meltingly beautiful. Eugene Brancoveanu was a powerhouse in the Toreador Song, which he finished with a back flip off the table. Christopher Bengochea was an effective Don Jose; Cybele Gouverneur sang well as Carmen, but lacked the sultriness of the best Carmens. 

These fine singers did their best to salvage what was otherwise a marginal production. The chorus was notably understaffed. My primary recollection will be the “chorus” of Act 1, with ten men. It sure looked (and sounded) as though only three of them were actually singing. Furthermore, a lot of cuts were made. Recollection says that all of the spoken dialogue was missing, which would explain the sudden transition in Act 2 from the opening dance directly to the arrival of Escamillo. Some of the introductory music of Act 3 was missing, as was much of the crowd scene at the beginning of Act 4. Despite a good performance by the principals, the overall effect was no more than a gamma.












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