Alley-Cat Carmen

"I've never seen a Carmen like this before!" exclaimed one startled dowager. And she was not alone. Before the curtain was down on the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Bizet's passionate masterpiece last week, there was many another exclamation; some were snorts from traditionalists, but most of them were something like "Wow!" The New York Journal-American's headline summed it up: JUST SHORT OF SENSATIONAL.

Mezzo-Soprano Rise Stevens has been singing the role of the wanton gypsy for seven years, but never in such abandoned and sultry fashion as last week. Her new Carmen was a personal triumph--and thoroughly in keeping with the vigor of the Met's new production.

Death by the Window. When General Manager Rudolf Bing decided to overhaul Carmen last spring, he handed the staging job to Tyrone Guthrie, topnotch director of London's Old Vic, and Designer Rolf Gerard. From the start, they decided on "naturalism," e.g., the workers in a Seville cigarette factory ought to look, for a change, a bit like factory workers.

In keeping with the Guthrie-Gerard ideas, the first-act set was starkly simple, most of the workers' costumes drab blacks and greys. Carmen herself was allowed some strikingly low-cut dresses, but--hallowed tradition or not--no red rose. Also missing: the awkward parade of supers into the bull ring in the last act. Guthrie and Gerard show a balcony full of spectators craning at an imaginary procession to an unseen ring. Moreover, they let the betrayed Don Jose catch up with Carmen in the tawdry hotel suite of Toreador Escamillo, instead of at the gates of the arena. Among other things, the switch permits Carmen to die with an added piece of melodrama--pulling down a huge red window drapery as she falls.

Success for a Tenor. Throughout, Director Guthrie kept Carmen's dramatic line strong and clear. He concentrated on the massed scenes, and succeeded in making his crowds and choruses something more than the usual sticky clots of humanity. But he paid attention to his individual characters too. Heretofore, Rise Stevens' acting in the role of Carmen has always had a trace of well-bred sorority girl. This time her Carmen was just short of plain alley cat.

Tenor Richard Tucker had a triumph of his own. Singing his first Don Jose, he proved again that his is probably the finest tenor to be heard today. No actor, he made a brave try to be one, and in the blazing fourth act succeeded. The rest of the cast, notably Frank Guarrera as Escamillo and Nadine Conner as Micaela, rallied to the cause. The orchestra, under Conductor Fritz Reiner, turned in a subtle and glowing performance.

All in all, Carmen and naturalism gave the rejuvenated old Met another strong new crowd-pleaser.

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