Dance of Life

No operatic style is more closely wedded to its native language than the small but heady French repertory. Its best composers, from Rameau to Poulenc, created music that wraps itself tightly around every inflection of the spoken word. Without French-born singers who can respond instinctively to the language embedded in the music, French opera is likely to languish--which is just what has been happening at New York's Metropolitan.

Even so, no company can long endure without a Carmen on its list, and last week, after six years' absence, Bizet's supple shocker returned to the Met in a new production. The Carmen was Grace Bumbry, a Negro mezzo-soprano from St. Louis; her Don Jose was Nicolai Gedda, a Swedish-Russian; the Escamillo was Justino Diaz, a Puerto Rican. The conductor was Zubin Mehta, an Indian from Bombay who now conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic--and who last week touched off a furor by denying that he was the least bit interested in conducting the New York Philharmonic*Yet what the musical performance lacked in authentic accent was balanced by the thoroughly Gallic staging of French Actor-Director Jean-Louis Barrault.

Taking his cues from the original

Prosper Merimee novella rather than from the encrustation of operatic melodramatics that have come to form the accepted Carmen style, Barrault restored to brimming life the tale of the gypsy charmer and the innocent soldier she dupes into loving her. "The story," says Barrault, "is tragedy rather than melodrama. It is a human tragedy, surrounded by a society that is so caught up in its own dance of life that it is indifferent to the suffering of others."

To suggest this framework, Designer Jacques Dupont created a set in which all four acts were played in an open arena. As Carmen worked her wiles on Don Jose, for example, a crowd representing all social levels wandered up and down the tiers of the arena in complete indifference, doing little dance steps of amused noninvolvement.

Considering the varied origins of his non-French-speaking cast, Barrault was probably justified in overstressing the theatrical aspects of the plot with constant stage activity. Bumbry, a rising singer who has created her share of glory at the Met as the villainesses in A'ida and Don Carlo, has yet to master the sinuous individuality of the French musical line. Though often incisive, Mehta's operatic work does not yet measure up to his symphonic accomplishments. As a result, Barrault created a Carmen that was acted more than it was sung. But he also provided the Met with a brilliant venture into musical theater.

"I don't want the job," Mehta said. "Artistically, it wouldn't be a step up for me. My orchestra is better than the New York Philharmonic." Mehta doubted that most of his supposed rivals for the job want it either. But the other candidates either kept mum or agreed with Composer-Conductor Pierre Boulez that leading the Philharmonic would be "a difficult but enviable job."

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