Carmen
a comfortable watercolour experience
| 08 Oct 2007
Ellen Kent certainly has a lot on her plate. This monstrously ambitious woman has concocted a multi-faceted and undeniably complicated travelling circus which now routinely toys with and teases the patience of informed opera patrons across the UK.
This is a big budget company with a massive team of players both on and off the stage. As the first producer to introduce Eastern European opera to Britain in 1992, Ellen has now set the roots of her operatic outreach initiative in her self-identified second home: the country of Moldova and its capital, Chisinau. Established company procedure will now usher this super-sized production across the UK for a series of fifty one-night-only performances; notwithstanding a second opera of equal proportions and an inexhaustible repertoire of impressive perks. A primary example is Louis, "the majestic black stallion", who rivals for an equal billing as Carmen herself, the voluptuous "gypsy temptress" played by Zarui Vardanean and host of this evening at the opera in idealistic Spanish vogue.
Ellen Kent's Carmen at Edinburgh's Playhouse Theatre presented an unexpected offering of Victorian-style pantomime. Stylistic pastiche is realized through a string of token cameo performances from onstage donkey to fully-functional fountain, choreographed horse gesture to flashy flamenco flair. Our ordinarily soaring, impassioned tragedy of flirtation is here relaxed to a muted melodrama: a stylistic rendition somewhat dwarfed by the cavernous depth and grandeur of the theatre despite the masses of lightweight special effects. Awe-inspiring stunts, for all their extravagance, are still no substitute for turbulent inner fire and heart-pumping intent and verve in a lust-driven tragedy like that of Carmen and her velvet-clad, diamond-studded toreador.
In our unshockable post-Fringe theatrical context, this production is quite extraordinary in its air of blissful conservatism. Following the intense onslaught of Existential Theatre, Surrealist Theatre, super-Realist Theatre, physical theatre, dance theatre, Meta-Theatre, Total Theatre and Theatre of the Absurd that was August in Edinburgh, Ellen Kent's Carmen offers instead a comfortable watercolour experience for those at edge with the idea of edgy. [Kelly Lovelady]
This is a big budget company with a massive team of players both on and off the stage. As the first producer to introduce Eastern European opera to Britain in 1992, Ellen has now set the roots of her operatic outreach initiative in her self-identified second home: the country of Moldova and its capital, Chisinau. Established company procedure will now usher this super-sized production across the UK for a series of fifty one-night-only performances; notwithstanding a second opera of equal proportions and an inexhaustible repertoire of impressive perks. A primary example is Louis, "the majestic black stallion", who rivals for an equal billing as Carmen herself, the voluptuous "gypsy temptress" played by Zarui Vardanean and host of this evening at the opera in idealistic Spanish vogue.
Ellen Kent's Carmen at Edinburgh's Playhouse Theatre presented an unexpected offering of Victorian-style pantomime. Stylistic pastiche is realized through a string of token cameo performances from onstage donkey to fully-functional fountain, choreographed horse gesture to flashy flamenco flair. Our ordinarily soaring, impassioned tragedy of flirtation is here relaxed to a muted melodrama: a stylistic rendition somewhat dwarfed by the cavernous depth and grandeur of the theatre despite the masses of lightweight special effects. Awe-inspiring stunts, for all their extravagance, are still no substitute for turbulent inner fire and heart-pumping intent and verve in a lust-driven tragedy like that of Carmen and her velvet-clad, diamond-studded toreador.
In our unshockable post-Fringe theatrical context, this production is quite extraordinary in its air of blissful conservatism. Following the intense onslaught of Existential Theatre, Surrealist Theatre, super-Realist Theatre, physical theatre, dance theatre, Meta-Theatre, Total Theatre and Theatre of the Absurd that was August in Edinburgh, Ellen Kent's Carmen offers instead a comfortable watercolour experience for those at edge with the idea of edgy. [Kelly Lovelady]
Run Ended