Carmen, Glyndebourne review — Rihab Chaieb radiates charisma in a splendid production

This is the year of Bizet’s Carmen. The Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Royal Opera in London have already had new productions and now Glyndebourne has joined the tally. Either opera companies feel a need to re-examine this totemic depiction of sexual violence in the current moral climate or — more likely — they are looking to a popular favourite to rebuild their finances after the pandemic.

At Glyndebourne, the summer season’s usual six operas have been reduced to five and the two new productions (the other is Lehár’s The Merry Widow) have an eye on the box office. With record ticket sales in the opening week, the good news is that the plan looks to be paying off.

The new Carmen has kicked the season off splendidly. A risk-free compromise between innovation and tradition, it is well sung and the high-quality playing of the London Philharmonic Orchestra counts as a major plus.

From curtain up, Glyndebourne’s music director, Robin Ticciati, raced into the opera as if there was no time to waste. The music fairly whistles past one’s ears, glinting with Mediterranean sun and catching the essential, light-touch opéra comique sparkle. Thanks to him this Carmen gets an irresistible lift.

In a now commonplace updating, Diane Paulus’s production sets the opera in some modern-day, totalitarian Latin American state. Male dominance is heightened by having the female workers penned into a cage like a prison and the crowd scenes ramp up the testosterone level, especially a high-energy rave with Escamillo, which makes other stagings look listless. The scene in the smugglers’ encampment is unfocused and does not work so well, but for the denouement between Carmen and Don José the hormones start raging again, charging the air with sex and violence.

Much of that is due to Carmen herself. When the casting department at Glyndebourne shuffled the cards, it dealt an ace in Tunisian-Canadian mezzo Rihab Chaieb, a Carmen who manages to be playful and daredevil at the same time. Her eyes flash with wit, insolence, sensuality and danger, and her voice echoes them with singing that has colours to spare. For a complete portrayal that radiates charisma, it would be hard to do better than this.

Next to her, Dmytro Popov is rather stiff as Don José, though some mileage is made out of that at the end by having him confront Carmen dressed in a formal suit and strangling her with his tie. Popov has a strong tenor with top notes that he shows off proudly, though there is less vocal flexibility and he does not sound entirely idiomatic.

Sofia Fomina makes a straightforward, effective Micaëla and Dmitry Cheblykov, flaunting tattoos and a gym-toned physique, is bullishly extrovert as an Escamillo more rock star than toreador. Elisabeth Boudreault and Kezia Bienek do well as Frasquita and Mercédès, and Dingle Yandell is outstanding as Zuniga.

Thanks to the fizzing performances of Ticciati and Chaieb, this Carmen unleashes the life force of Bizet’s opera as potently as any in recent years. Note that a second cast takes over in August, though led by Aigul Akhmetshina, who is no mean Carmen herself.

★★★★☆

A technical hitch delayed the start of Die Zauberflöte a couple of nights later, but that was the least of the evening’s problems. This is a revival of the 2019 production by Barbe and Doucet that imagines Mozart’s opera as Tamino’s dream in an Edwardian hotel. Though it is attractively designed, the whole exercise turns out to be meaningless.

For every good idea (the birth of Papageno’s many children is a hoot) there are a dozen more that are weak or mystifying. Even if the opera is a kind of German pantomime, it tackles some serious themes. What does Tamino’s journey to enlightenment lead to here? A job as a hotel waiter? And who is Sarastro, high priest of the temple of sun, meant to represent? The chef in charge of soufflés?

Unsurprisingly, Mozart’s characters lose any sense of purpose. The hangdog Papageno suffers most, though Rodion Pogossov might have made a better job of the role if his German was more comprehensible. Paul Appleby and Lauren Snouffer, Tamino and Pamina, field good-quality voices. Alina Wunderlin emerges from the hotel lift to let rip as the vengeful Queen of Night and James Platt booms impressive low notes as Sarastro, though neither is vocally ideal. The three ladies and three boys do well.

By the standards of period performance, Constantin Trinks conducts the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at safe and stolid speeds. Something more inspiring is needed, though it is doubtful that the production could be rescued even if a five-star cast checked into this Magic Flute hotel.

★★☆☆☆

‘Carmen’ to August 24, ‘Die Zauberflöte’ to July 21, glyndebourne.com