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BLO brings lean, mean ‘Carmen’ to Opera House

Boston Lyric Opera’s production of Georges Bizet’s Carmen.Liza Voll

Bizet’s “Carmen” is one of the most popular operas in the repertoire, so if you’re producing it, you want an outstanding cast or an innovative concept. Back in 1994, Boston Lyric Opera had Lorraine Hunt Lieberson in the title role and the action presented as Don José’s flashback just before he’s hanged. In 2002, the Lyric’s two outdoor performances of “Carmen on the Common” flaunted Jossie Pérez’s flamboyant Carmen before audiences estimated at 50,000 to 60,000. The company’s 2009 “Carmen” was a respectable chamber effort, with a spare set and the original spoken dialogue, albeit at the cost of some cuts.

Now, as the Lyric celebrates its 40th anniversary with its first ever visit to the Boston Opera House, it turns to Catalan director Calixto Bieito’s 1999 version, which strips the proceedings down to bare (sometimes nude) essentials. The time frame is post-Franco; the venue is not Seville but Ceuta, an autonomous Spanish city on the north coast of Africa opposite Gibraltar.

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Jennifer Johnson Cano in the title role of “Carmen” at the Boston Opera House. T Charles Erickson

Set designer Alfons Flores represents the barracks with a flagpole and an oversized phone booth from which Carmen makes her entrance. Lillas Pastia’s tavern, where Carmen proposes to drink manzanilla and dance the seguidilla, is replaced by a Mercedes (a pun on the name of one of Carmen’s friends?), a tiny artificial Christmas tree, a beach chair, a cooler, and some milk crates. Four more Mercedes arrive at the smugglers’ hideout, in the shadow of the massive black bull advertising silhouette created by the Osborne sherry company. The finale takes place in a simple chalk oval, a miniature bull ring.

The opening line is spoken by a white-suited, stogie-chomping Lillas Pastia, who tells us that love is just another word for death. In Bieito’s world, however, love is just another word for sex, and this “Carmen” is mean as well as lean. A gang rape is suggested, fellatio is simulated behind a Mercedes, and at one point Carmen discreetly removes her underpants from beneath her skirt in order to have sex with Don José. Women are routinely harassed and manhandled; Carmen is threatened with a knife, a belt, and a windshield wiper.

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The men treat each other no better: For much of act one, a soldier in boots and underpants is made to carry a rifle and run laps around the stage. Later, Lieutenant Zuniga gets stomped by the smugglers and has his hand slammed in a car door. The macho ethos is summed up at the beginning of act three when a shadowy torero discards his clothing and stares down the Osborne bull in a show of naked masculinity before executing a few air veronicas. The women, only too happy to barter sex for money, are hardly more admirable; the one exception is Mercedes’s tween daughter (a Bieito addition), who prefers her doll to the heels her mother tries to force on her.

All this — even the selfie Don José takes of himself with Micaela — might have worked with an outstanding cast. Jennifer Johnson Cano’s Carmen negotiates the first act with a chip on her shoulder; what should be a sinuous “Habanera” is devoid of dance movement in both voice and body, and — here the director is complicit — she sings the “Seguidilla” on her knees with her hands tied behind her. Cano does loosen up in her second-act “Chanson bohème,” getting up on top of the Mercedes and shimmying, but she’s static again in the finale. Her voice has power but seldom much nuance.

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From left: Escamillo (Michael Mayes) and Don Jose (Roger Honeywell) compare notes on their rival love for Carmen. T Charles Erickson

The singing in general is powerful, but it’s not always easy or secure at the top and bottom, and it tends to be declamatory rather than characterful. Roger Honeywell is a neutral Don José; his “Flower Song” is tender enough, but his only acting note is obsession. Perhaps that’s the director’s fault. Michael Mayes brings some charisma to Escamillo; it’s not hard to see why Carmen would prefer him to Don José, particularly when he’s able to upgrade her wardrobe. Chelsea Basler is a forward, knowing Micaela, a plus, though her crude gesture at Carmen still seems misplaced. The chorus sings sweetly; the orchestra under David Angus gives a nice lilt to the “Seguidilla” and a nice swagger to the Prelude music in the finale.

The production runs three hours with one 30-minute intermission. The cuts in the narrative include the suggestion of Don José’s mother that he marry Micaela and Escamillo’s initial overture to Carmen. (One line that should have been cut, given the African locale, is the one where Escamillo invites the smugglers to his bullfight in Seville.) The supertitle screens are located far left and right rather than overhead, so it’s hard to follow action and translation at the same time. The translation itself panders to Bieito’s interpretation: These cigarette-factory girls are no longer “impudent coquettes” but “bitches.”

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Even in a “Carmen” that’s more politics than poetry, it’s good to see Boston Lyric Opera in the Opera House. A permanent home of this stature would give the company room to grow.

“Carmen”

Music by Georges Bizet. Libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. Directed by Calixto Bieito with revival director Joan Anton Rechi. Set, Alfons Flores. Costumes, Mercè Paloma. Lighting, Robert Wierzel. Music direction, David Angus. A co-production of Boston Lyric Opera and San Francisco Opera. Presented by Boston Lyric Opera. At: Boston Opera House, Friday Sept. 23. Remaining performances: Sept. 25 and 30 and Oct. 2. Tickets: $25-$175. 617-542-6772, www.blo.org


Jeffrey Gantz can be reached at jeffreymgantz@gmail.com.