Festival Opera's performance of Carmen is set to hit the stage in just over a week's time. Director Anna Pierard says the famed opera will be popular for those from all walks of life. She chats to Mark Story.
How would you sum up Carmen?
The opera is utter, unadulterated
entertainment from beginning to end. It has held audiences enthralled for generations which is why it is both the most accessible and beloved opera in the repertoire. It's a great opera for opera lovers and also for people who hate the idea - they won't after seeing Carmen.
You boast a great cast. How do you go about recruiting for the roles?
We look for the right team. It's important, because of the amount of teenagers onstage, that our cast is fairly young overall, so that is a factor. They also need to have the right instrument for the part - Don Jose is a heavy role for a tenor, requiring great powerful top notes - Matt is certainly an ideal Don Jose here.
Carmen must be desirable - this is important, as much as we like to believe, as singers, that the voice is most important. So it is, but it is not all the audience experience and therefore how a singer looks and moves and communicates physically onstage, bears huge impact on whether they will fit in a certain production.
Carleen Ebbs is a local girl gone international, she is wonderfully at ease on stage, and that is what we're looking for. Pasquale Orchard is equally at home - so the trio of gypsies, with Carmen as the ring leader, needs to work well as a unit.
Do opera singers need to understand the languages they're singing in - or is it just phonetic?
Singers need to understand what they're singing about, absolutely. It's not always prioritised, but it should be.
Can you balance contemporary licence with staying true to Bizet's original?
Absolutely, Jose Aparicio will always stay true, but can't resist a little Kiwi flavour in there, where it improves things!
How would you sum up Hawke's Bay current opera appetite?
I think Hawke's Bay people are beginning to understand that they can have a great night at the opera. That it's money well spent and such beauty can be appreciated if not fully understood. We're not stuffy here at Festival Opera, we're just excited by opera, and its potential to bring people together from different walks of life.
* Carmen will run on February 14, 16 and 18. See ticketek.co.nz.
