Saturday was the opening night of a sold-out performance to one of the most popular operas of all time; CARMEN.
Congratulations to Vancouver Opera for celebrating 65 years with an awesome 2024-2025 lineup.
Once again, with my friend Rosa, at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver to enjoy an evening of revered arias sung in French with projected English subtitles, interesting colourful characters, spectacular costumes and set design. My first time seeing it and her third time; once at the Met in New York. Of course I’d heard about it but didn’t really know the story until now.
The good thing about going with an opera buff friend (as opposed to opera buffa or buffoon) is that they already know about the story, the composer and the arias. They can tell you which ones are “must-sees.” This was one of them. Like everything else, some are much better than others.
It was probably the most enjoyable opera I’ve seen in a long time, if even a bit too long as it has four acts with a 25 minute intermission after the second act. I can’t believe how much detail goes into the making of a production of this scale. No small feat for the choreographer (Cydney Uffindell-Phillips). The actors suited their respective roles and gave magnificent performances. With so many actors on the stage all at once in several scenes, it makes you wonder how they all manage to get it together backstage. It must be organized chaos. It’s a grand undertaking that went seemingly seamless.
The short synopsis tells the story of a hopeless soldier, Don José, who is seduced by Carmen, a fiery gypsy woman with an appetite for smuggling. As operas tend to go it’s full of infatuation, passion, jealousy, class conflict and gender inequality. Carmen; the dominant force here uses her beauty to get what she wants. Men fall in love with her at first glance and she knows it and uses it to manoeuvre her way in and out of situations. Oh; to have that much power in beauty alone. But she’s also cunning and a little dangerous. Men be warned! Blinded by her charm, they ignore the signals.
The Acts are too long to describe here, but I suggest if you adore opera or want to learn more, check out the link below for tickets.
If you’re new to opera and want a brief description of popular opera terms check this out:
You’re at the opera house. You open the program book or you’re listening to the opera snobs talk, and you can’t understand a word — or at least some words. To get a handle on what they all mean, here’s a chart:
| aria: An emotion-expressing song in an opera; the big number. | opera buffa: Funny opera, especially from the 18th century. Think Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro.” |
| bel canto: A style of sweet singing, taught to singers even today, that emphasizes breath control, a beautiful tone, and great flexibility in dynamics (going from loud to soft, for example). | opera seria: Formal, serious opera, especially from the 18th century. |
| cadenza: A moment near the end of an aria for the singer alone, with lots of fast, high, difficult notes, designed for showing off. | prima donna: The singer who plays the heroine, the main female character in an opera; or anyone who believes that the world revolves around her. |
| coloratura: A singer (usually soprano) with an extremely agile, light, pure-sounding voice, capable of easily singing fast, high notes. | recitative (“ress-it-uh-TEEV”): Speech-singing, in which the singer semi-chants the words, imitating the free rhythms of speech. |
| dynamics: The loudness or softness of a musical composition, or the markings in the sheet music that indicate volume. | Singspiel (“SING-shpeel”): A German opera with spoken dialogue (instead of recitative) between arias. |
| Leitmotif (“LIGHT-mo-teef”): A little melody that plays every time a certain character or object appears; invented by Richard Wagner. | trouser role: A man’s part played by a woman. |
| libretto: The script of an opera. | verismo: A realistic, “documentary” style of opera that depicts the seamy underbelly of life. |
CARMEN: April 27 – May 5, 2024 7:30PM
Queen Elizabeth Theatre
For Tickets: https://www.vancouveropera.ca/whats-on/carmen/
Header photo: Emily Cooper Photography, courtesy of Vancouver Opera.
Opera chart taken from:
https://www.dummies.com/article/academics-the-arts/music/voice/opera-for-dummies-cheat-sheet-209080
Girl Who Would be KING on Life, Style and INSPIRATION. 
You must be logged in to post a comment.