Carmen

I have the October issue of BBC MUSIC, with the cover story 20 Greatest Operas of all time, and I'm still staggered by the selections. They polled 172 active singers world-wide, and Carmen appears nowhere on the list. The people who actually sing the operas I love do not like Carmen. I guess it's too French, or too vulgar or too... whatever.

So I'm going to write about this film of the Antonacci-Kaufmann pairing at Covent Garden in 2007, in an attempt to redress the wrong. It's a good show: Pappano conducts well, sets and costumes are appropriate for the period (no Regietheatre here, thank God), the singers are out of the top drawer. Ildebrando D'Arcangelo whom I have admired as Figaro and Almaviva is not the Escamillo of my dreams--he's too laid back, too smiling--but he's in good voice. Antonacci really projects the sweaty physicality of Carmen, on the same level as the Rosi film of 1984, and Kaufmann is excellent as the befuddled Don Jose. Bound for his ruination, and we're happy to accompany him.

When it comes to Carmen, which is one of my favourite operas, my favourites are the 1984 film with Julia Migenes-Johnson and the 1967 film/production with Grace Bumbry and Jon Vickers. This 2007 production is very good, albeit it is not a truly great one. For me the only things I didn't like were some rather limited and unauthentic setting and the handsome and well-sung but rather uncompelling Escamillo that was Ildebrando D'Arcangello. The costumes are wonderful, the music and story are magnificent and the picture quality and sound are very effective. The sexiness and passion of the opera is still there, thanks to the scintillating chemistry of the leads, the Spanish flavour embodied by the orchestra and the electrifying conducting of Antonio Pappano. As seductive, flirtatious and wonderful as Anna Caterina Antonacci is as Carmen, and there is a very heartfelt Micaela too, it is Jonas Kaufmann's superb Don Jose that captivates here. All in all, could've been better, but worth catching. 8/10 Bethany Cox