J'Nai Bridges and company in "Carmen" by Lyric Opera of Chicago. But it was her only major directorial misfire, otherwise bringing a ruddy verisimilitude to everything happening onstage. One wishes director Marie Lambert-Le Bihan had devised an engaging way to fill the dead air of a hasty change from one to the other between Acts 3 and 4, rather than leaving the audience to sit in silence. Lyric’s production is set sometime in the early 20th century, evoked through Robert Perdziola’s sharp, sensitive costumes and just two backdrops by Robin Don: a citadel winkingly resembling the walls of a bullfighting ring, and the craggy slopes of the mountains in Act 3. ![]() As Remendado and Dancaïre, respectively, tenor Ryan Capozzo and baritone Laureano Quant were fleet-tongued in their pattering second-act appearance, and baritone Ian Rucker was a pitch-perfect, swaggering Moralès. The card trio was a show highlight in the hands of soprano Denis Veléz and mezzo Katherine DeYoung, the former’s sky-skating lines especially radiant. Clay Thompson, playing Zuniga, is quickly becoming the company’s young MVP, and his pliant, expressive bass demonstrates exactly why. Ryan Opera Center singers carried the show’s entire supporting cast, and phenomenally so. By the time the lieutenant Zuniga claims “elle est gentille vraiment” (“She’s a nice girl, really”), we don’t quirk our brow quite as skeptically. Bridges’ reading of the heroine was jocular, witty, fun-loving, a bit tomboyish - reckless, yes, but not malevolent. If you’re looking for a better-acted Carmen, I suspect you’ll be searching for a while. (Otherwise savvy choreographer Stephanie Martinez misgauged this number, the stomps of the ballet corps both overwhelming and muddling in execution.) And a powerful one, no less: Her voice easily kept its head above water in even the densest ensemble and orchestral material, the most daunting of these the tavern-dance din of “Les tringles des sistres tintaient” in Act 2. Bridges’ Habanera aria introduced us to a Carmen both sultry and smiling, cavalierly riffing on the “l’amour” refrain. The irresistible dualities of Bridges’s voice are all but made for Carmen: breezy enough to sound extemporized but unrelenting in its command, radiating heat in every register yet hinting at a knowing reserve. So do Bridges and Castronovo as the central lovers. J'Nai Bridges (as Carmen) and Charles Castronovo (as Don José) in "Carmen" by Lyric Opera of Chicago. (Lyric’s production makes no mention of her age and sees her track down Don José herself in the last act, mountain guide be damned.) It also retains a spoken exchange in which Don José and Carmen connect over being from Navarre the dialogue only lasts a few seconds, but it brings a world of credibility to their relationship. Lyric’s production mostly opts in, with the exception of some material pertaining to Micaëla, a 17-year-old ingénue. No authoritative version of the opera exists, and companies can take or leave “Carmen’s” recitatives. ![]() That perspective was unambiguously feminist without veering into feel-good tropism or bowdlerization of composer Georges Bizet’s original - a welcome balance at a company that isn’t exactly known for its light interpretive touch. Much like last year’s “Tosca,” this “Carmen” uses a no-frills production - a 20-year-old Lyric production in its first outing since 2010 - to frame the house’s freshest perspective on the opera in years. This “Carmen” largely lived up to those expectations on Wednesday, and in many respects exceeded them.
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