Silver Season Ends with Golden ‘Carmen’

By Eman Isadiar

Marking the conclusion of the company’s 25th anniversary, Opera San José’s latest production of Carmen opened on Saturday, April 18, 2009 to a near full house at the California Theatre. Mezzo-soprano Cybele Gouverneur appeared as Carmen opposite tenor Alexander Boyer, who portrayed her disgraced lover Don José. The performance was conducted by Opera San José’s founding music director David Rohrbaugh.

Mezzo-soprano Cybele Gouverneur appears in the title role in Opera San José’s Carmen (Photo by Pat Kirk)

Carmen is the loftiest product of the mind of French composer Georges Bizet, who completed the work only months before his death. The opera’s phenomenal success with perhaps three of the best-known arias of all time—the Habanera, the Seguedilla and the "Toreador Song"—has by far eclipsed other contemporary works of the genre, including Bizet’s own seven other operas.

Sung in French, the three-act opera tells the story of a hot-tempered gypsy girl named Carmen, with a mysterious, almost magical power over men. She struts her stuff on the plaza in the opening act while singing the famous Habanera “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle” (“Love, A Restless Bird”) and throws a flower to the only man in the crowd who seems unmoved by her beauty—a soldier named Don José.

After Carmen leaves the scene and the crowd disperses, a young woman named Micaela delivers a letter to Don José from his ailing mother, in which she urges him to marry the lovely messenger. Upon reading the letter, Don José announces to the blushing Micaela his intention to fulfill his mother’s wish.

In the following scene, Carmen is arrested for slashing a girl’s face in a catfight at the cigarette factory where they both work. She is bound and delivered to Don José, who must take her to prison; however, the plot thickens.

A strong attraction—of the fatal kind—soon develops between them, complete with its own haunting orchestral leitmotif. As a result, Don José goes to jail for Carmen, abandons his military career and his fiancée Micaela, and joins a band of smugglers.

With his life now virtually ruined, Don Jose also oversteps the threshold of sanity when he learns that Carmen has taken up with a dashing bullfighter named Escamillo.

Baritone Krassen Karagiozov sings Escamillo's "Toreador Song" with the Opera San José Chorus in Act 2 of Carmen (Photo by Pat Kirk)

In the final act, Carmen and her new lover Escamillo are surrounded by admirers as they walk toward the bullfighting arena. Carmen learns that Don José is nearby and wishes to speak to her, so she separates from the group to find him.

A disheveled and distraught Don José emerges from the shadows and begs Carmen to reunite with him. Carmen states that she belongs to no one and does only as she pleases. He repeats his plea merely to receive the same reply.

Eager not to miss the bullfight, Carmen tells Don José to either kill her or to step aside and leave her in peace. As the crowd cheers Escamillo’s slaughter of the bull, so does Don José stab his knife into Carmen’s heart.

Cybele Gouverneur was more than convincing as the sultry seductress of Seville. Her distinctive timbre has a particularly rich texture near the lower end of her range. A memorable highlight was Gouverneur’s enchanting rendition of the famous Seguedilla of Act 1, “Près des ramparts de Séville” (“Near the Walls of Seville”), where, after being arrested, Carmen charms her guard Don José into letting her go.

Gouverneur’s inspired Carmen was paired with an equally compelling Don José by Alexander Boyer. The gifted tenor’s performance achieved its highest point in the tavern scene aria “La fleur que tu m’avais jetée” (“The Flower You Threw My Way”), where Don José, after spending two months in jail, declares his undying love to Carmen.

Tenor Alexander Boyer and soprano Rebecca Davis sings the parts of Don José and Micaela in Opera San José’s Carmen (Photo by Pat Kirk)

One of the opera’s many pleasant surprises came from soprano Rebecca Davis, who was simply stellar as Micaela. Her unique chemistry with Boyer made for an unforgettable duet in Act 1—“Parle-moi de ma mere” (“Tell Me of Mother”)—where the tenor and soprano sing in such close harmonic proximity that their voices seem to fuse together in the end.

The colorful details of the story came to life under the direction of Sandra Bengochea, who created a vivid and poignant Carmen as a proud marker of Opera San José’s quarter-century history.

Baritone Krassen Karagiozov and sopranos Jillian Boye and Alicia Lynch deserve mention as the talented voices of Escamillo, Frasquita and Mercedes respectively, as do the chorus master John Bailey and choreographer Lise La Cour, whose parts were especially important in the tavern scene of Act 2.

The backbone of this Carmen, however, was the impressively skilled orchestra led by David Rohrbaugh. From the very first note of the thrilling overture to the ominous, gripping finale, the orchestra provided a perfectly nuanced and highly attentive accompaniment worthy of the finest of opera houses.

Ladies and gentlemen, the bar has been raised for season 26.

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Eman Isadiar teaches piano at the Peninsula Conservatory and writes about music in the San Francisco Bay Area.