‘Carmen’ Finds Its Strength in Drama if Not in Voice

SAN DIEGO —  Dramatically, the San Diego Opera production of Bizet’s “Carmen” gets the essential points so right that it’s a pity the singing doesn’t reach the same level.

For the impact, credit a cast of powerful principals, conductor Richard Bonynge and director James de Blasis. Add the wise decision to revert to spoken dialogues from the original, instead of using Guiraud’s later recitatives. The dialogue makes the story grittier, and the supertitle translations are closer to the French. “Carmen” opened the San Diego season Saturday; the five-performance run continues at the Civic Theatre.

Adria Firestone, seen in the 1992 production, has returned in the title role with an arresting, complex characterization that remains intact--alluring, practical, idealistic, whole-hearted, fatalistic. Excesses reported then have been toned down.

Her second-act scene with Don Jose (Richard Leech) is remarkable. Here is a Carmen clearly in love with the corporal, even starry-eyed in her vision of their life together in the mountains.

In an unusual directorial departure, de Blasis, who is new to the production, has prolonged the love between Carmen and Jose through the end of Jose’s Flower Song. Jose embraces Carmen and gives her the ring she will throw at him in the final scene. It makes an emotionally cohesive arc, as well as linking present and later action.

Yet on Saturday, Firestone’s voice was even more tattered and unreliable than reported in the earlier production.

Although he was singing Jose for the first time, Leech already had worked out a detailed, persuasive and frightening portrait of the corporal’s obsession and degradation. Vocally, however, he sounded more strained--more brassy than golden--than he did earlier this season in Puccini’s “Tosca” for the Los Angeles Music Center Opera.

He took the high A in the duet with Micaela at the triple piano marked in the score but, perhaps wisely, didn’t try a pianissimo high B-flat in the Flower Song.

Cynthia Clayton made her debut with the opera as a sweet and secure-voiced Micaela. Louis Otey, who recently sang Eisenstein for Opera Pacific, made a handsome Escamillo, sounding rich throughout the range except in the heights.

Sylvia Wen and Sarah Blaze were strong-voiced Gypsies, as were Stephen Powell and Beau Palmer. But James Butler (Zuniga) and Roberto Gomez (Morales) sounded labored.

Dorothy Randall’s adult chorus sounded fine. Edgar Billups’ children’s chorus sang well and marched more smartly than the soldiers. Bonynge conducted with sympathy and intelligence, even if he did not mine Bizet’s wonderful score very deeply.

This production actually dates back to 1984. John Conklin’s drab sets look dispiriting; Peter J. Hall’s costumes look serviceable. Stephen Ross created the subtle lighting design.

De Blasis’ directorial decisions do not always work well. He has created too much secondary byplay (the smugglers making bets on scuffling cigarette girls, for instance). His decision to have Jose stab himself after killing Carmen, in particular, falls flat. But he keeps the focus on the drama, and in an era of routine “Carmens,” that is a lot to be grateful for.

* “Carmen” continues with the same cast Tuesday at 7 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m. and Jan. 29 at 7 p.m. at the Civic Theatre, 3rd Avenue and B Street, San Diego. $25-$80, $100 on Saturday. (619) 236-6510.