By Jeremy Eichler, Globe Staff
Over the years, Chorus pro Musica under artistic director Jeffrey Rink has built an extremely loyal and enthusiastic following for its annual performance of opera in concert. Last June's offering took place in a sweltering Jordan Hall, where even a broken ventilation system could not dampen audience spirits. This year, on Sunday afternoon, a capacity crowd packed into the same hall, happily climate-controlled, for a lively and high-octane performance of “Carmen.”
This Bizet favorite was the first concert opera Rink led at the helm of CpM, back in 1992, and Sunday's performance also made it his swan song. After 18 years, the conductor is stepping down as artistic director in order to hazard new fortunes in Florida, though he will return next year to guest conduct CpM’s performance of Puccini's “Turandot.”
In the title role on Sunday was the formidable Victoria Livengood, who has made a specialty of Carmen, having performed it over 200 times according to her bio. Her take on Bizet's cigarette girl was sultry, earthy, defiant, aggressive, entertaining, and totally over the top. She made eyes at individuals in the crowd, swigged wine from an open bottle, swatted Rink's backside with a tambourine while he was conducting, and in the last scene, removed Don José’s ring with her teeth and spit it back at his feet. (If Adam Klein's Don José had not been armed with an imaginary knife, I'm not sure who would have won in a duel.) Vocally, Livengood's presence was just as large, with a mezzo-soprano of Wagnerian heft, a solid top, and husky lower range. Indeed, beneath all the campy overacting were the ingredients of an unusual and compelling Carmen that never fully gelled.
Klein seemed to throw everything he had into creating a Don José that could keep up with this Carmen, though he leaned a bit too heavily on brute vocal force rather than clean technique, so upper notes too often had a snarling, shouted quality rather than a ringing clarion tone. Still this was a deeply committed performance that conveyed the desperation of a man coming slowly yet completely unglued. Nouné Karapetian sang a sensitive Micaëla with a light and sweet soprano, and she also stood out for the way she scaled her voice appropriately to the intimate dimensions of Jordan Hall. Baritone Robert Honeysucker sang a slightly rickety yet elegant Escamillo, and the smaller roles were ably filled out by Brian Major, Benjamin Werth, Sarah Beckham, Sara Bielanski, John Gomez, and Gregg Jacobson.
The chorus was prepared for this program by Louis G. Burkot, and its sound was abundant, forceful, and attractive in tone yet often a bit hazy in definition. Under Rink's baton, the orchestral playing on Sunday was not the tidiest but it had the requisite heat and finesse when it counted. Julia Scolnik (flute) and Martha Moor (harp) cast the right spell in the big solo before Act III, and other notable contributions came from Andrea Bonsignore (oboe), Steven Jackson (clarinet), and Donald Bravo (bassoon). The New England Conservatory Children's Chorus did itself proud.
Original link: http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/food/articles/2008/06/04/bringing_back_bizets_femme_fatale/
BY LLOYD SCHWARTZ
Jeffrey Rink has just ended his 18th and final season as music director of Chorus pro Musica. He’s already completed his first year directing the Northwest Florida Symphony Orchestra. He’ll be missed—especially his series of accomplished concert operas, landmarks of Boston’s recent musical history. His swan song (though the program says he’ll be back to conduct next year’s CpM Turandot) was the opera he began with in 1992, Carmen, and his conducting was, once again, stylish, incisive, colorful (Julia Skolnik, flute, and Martha Moor, harp, in the atmospheric second entr’acte, for example), propulsive, witty, and—when called for—grandly tragic. The chorus, and the NEC Children’s Chorus, sang with verve—and good French. And the superb orchestra was on its game.
Carmen needs a strong cast, and this performance had one. Tenor Adam Klein doesn’t have a meltingly beautiful voice, but his grim ferocity made Don José’s murder of Carmen inevitable. Young Armenian-American soprano Nouné Karapetian as Micaela had a distinctive timbre, a lovely presence, and a tendency to sing a hair off pitch. Veteran Boston baritone Robert Honeysucker sang the bullfighter Escamillo with eloquence and tonal radiance. His “Toreador Song” was the song of seduction Bizet intended. His was the most thoroughly satisfying performance—and not for the first time. John Gomez and Gregg Jacobson were lively smugglers, and Sarah Beckham and Sara Bielanski were appealing as Carmen’s Gypsy pals (the mercurial second-act quintet was a high point).
According to her bio, mezzo-soprano Victoria Livengood has sung Carmen more than 200 times, and that includes performances at the Met. She has a voice of extraordinary power, beauty, and range. But as with her Dalila in CpM’s 2005 Samson et Dalila,, she was playing to the fourth balcony, and Jordan Hall has only one. She was in character from the moment she entered to the moment she left the stage, even miming conversation when she wasn’t singing. She played the castanets, struck her tambourine against her knee and butt, did a Gypsy dance, winked at members of the audience, swigged from a wine bottle, even mopped Rink’s neck with her hanky during the “Habanera.” When Carmen throws back at Don José the ring he’d given her, Livengood bit it off her finger and spat it at him! But little seemed spontaneous. After 200 Carmens, she indeed knows what works. Yet her conception was a cliché, the campy vamp rather than the tragic heroine who needs her freedom more than any lover and realizes that someday she’ll die for it. Still, it was certainly a performance.
Original link: http://thephoenix.com/Boston/Music/62529-CANTATA-SINGERS-MARK-MORRIS-CHORUS-PRO-MUSICA/
By Margaret Smith
Chorus pro Musica presents “Carmen” by Georges Bizet, with Victoria Livengood, Adam Klein, Robert Honeysucker and Noune Karapetian. Jeffrey Rink, artistic director. At Jordan Hall, New England Conservatory, Boston, Sunday, June 1.
Opera lovers know the scene well—the cigarette factory, the randy soldiers waiting for the girls to get off shift, and the sultry Carmen sauntering to the fore with her taunting, world-weary declarations of “L’amour, l’amour.”
But Chorus pro Musica’s presentation of Bizet’s torrid and fanciful depiction of Spanish Gypsy life, on a stage bereft of elaborate sets or florid costuming, brought a contemporary flare to a beloved classic.
The staging was the right backdrop for Carmen (Victoria Livengood, continually bringing new facets to her signature role;) Don Jose (the strong but graceful Adam Klein, whose tragic hero is poignant and unloveable in turns); supremely confident matador Escamillo (a robust and elegant Robert Honeysucker) and Micaela, (Noune Karapetian,) the sweet girl from Don Jose’s hometown. Here, however, Micaela was no passive instrument of fate but unnervingly powerful in Karapetian’s exquisite performance.
Brian Major as Morales set the story with a gorgeous vocalization, perfectly conveying a perfectly bored guard who’s hoping, just hoping, for a bit of romantic zest when the factory whistle blows.
Livengood’s Carmen was deceptively playful, with the charm of a cabaret performer, even teasing the conductor and the audience along with her admirers among the low-ranking guards around the factory.
But when subjected to Don Jose’s jealous rages, her true powers emerged, with the shattering courage and dignity of a Shakespearean queen.
Klein’s Don Jose emerged slowly and cautiously, which of course seems wise, given Carmen’s notorious reputation for fickleness; there was something prodigiously restrained in his character, even at his moment of downfall.
Adding delight and authenticity were Carmen’s Gypsy clan mates, including Gregg Jacobson, John Gomez, Sarah Beckham and Sara Bielanaski; Benjamin Werth as Zuniga, Don Jose’s dutiful but easily-duped superior, brought unexpected humor to the role.
Appearances by students of the New England Conservatory Children’s Chorus, directed by Jean Aulten, were impressive, but seemed largely for the benefit of showcasing the young students’ abilities rather than an elemental necessity.
Chorus pro Musica was the backbone to the opera’s narrative, affecting the guards, factory girls, bullfighting spectators and other citizens who bear witnesses to the beauty and terror wrought by Carmen’s and Don Jose’s passions.
Carmen remains one of opera’s most controversial characters, reimagined endlessly in her implications both for race and gender, but here was an opportunity to experience the desire and betrayal at the heart of Bizet’s story.
And it left audiences wanting to see Carmen rise, again and again, sometimes sympathetic, sometimes not, perhaps a person in the margins determined to have no master but herself, but like her entreaty, “L’amour, l’amour,” always irresistible.
Original link: http://www.wickedlocal.com/bedford/fun/entertainment/arts/x1694506330/Modern-spirit-shines-in-bright-Carmen