It’s not news that the classical music season opens up this fall. It isn’t news, either, that the classical scene is offering more first-class, groundbreaking musical experiences.
Toledoans shouldn’t be surprised nor expect to be bored. The Toledo Symphony Orchestra packs a lot of musical punch every season with series that offer ballet, chamber music, masterworks, pop, family, jazz, and a special event or two.
The TSO has just cut the ribbon on its Center for Live Arts. While the orchestra won’t abandon the beautiful Peristyle, 2445 Monroe St, the Valentine Theatre at 410 Adams St., or the Stranahan Theater, 4645 Heatherdowns Blvd., it now has space for other fare, especially in its two studio performance spaces.
Since 1959, the Toledo Opera Association has proved its versatility with Broadway musicals and great grand opera, not only the traditional repertoire but groundbreaking works Blue and I Dream. Its versatility has made its name nationwide as a producer of quality performances seen in much larger communities.
This season will see Georges Bizet’s Carmen and Gaetano Donizetti’s L’Elisir D’Amore (The Elixir of Love), a comic opera revolving around a lovesick peasant, a quack doctor, a swaggering sergeant, a rich uncle, and a beloved tenor aria.
It’s a perfect vehicle for Valentine’s Day, said Rachael Cammarn, opera director of marketing and communication.
Georges Bizet’s Carmen is set for Oct. 10 at 7:30 p.m. and 2 p.m. on Oct. 12. L’Elisir D’Amore is set for Feb. 13 at 7:30 p.m. and Feb. 15 at 2 p.m.
Operas are presented at the Valentine Theatre.
Smaller musical organizations also enliven the musical arts in the Toledo area. The Toledo Chorale Society has been entertaining the area for more than a century.
Perrysburg and Sylvania have community orchestras and bands. Plus, regional theaters and educational facilities not only offer quality musical education but free or low-cost public performances.
Carmen, opening the TOA’s season, has been produced many times locally — and everywhere else. It’s one of those old warhorses; an opera that fills seats with enticing music, colorful staging, and a story of love, lust, jealousy, and murder.
And it’s the 150th anniversary of its 1875 Paris premiere.
Georges Bizet had written 17 operas and operettas, but his works were either moderately successful or mothballed. When he died three months later at age 36 — during Carmen’s 33rd performance — he knew that his 18th work was a flop.
Critics and audience members were shocked by a protagonist who was independent, strong-willed, and sexy. In full view of the audience. Women smoked and fought. There was no ballet. Some musicians deemed the music unplayable. The “Toreador” aria was met with silence.
What Bizet didn’t know was that when the revised work premiered in Vienna four months after his death, it won the hearts of his critics, and its popularity has not receded since.
But why has a work that is 150 years old still been wildly popular and a shoo-in to fill an opera house?
Kevin Bylsma, artistic director, was quick to answer. “Because there’s one hit tune after another.”
Indeed, chances are high that even operaphobes have heard something from Carmen from commercials to movie scores and even television oldie Gilligan’s Island.
“Yeah, it starts with the overture. You hear that and you say, ‘that was in Bad News Bears,” Bylsma said. “They know the ‘Habanera,’ they know the ‘Toreador’ song. Everybody knows that.”
Even if you didn’t know, you knew it when you heard it.
“It’s the ABC of opera, says James Norman, opera’s general director. In other words, it’s a good selection for anyone who wants to see what opera’s all about.
Carmen is a Roma woman, sung by Lisa Marie Rogali. Carmen gets in a fight with one of the factory workers, and up-and-coming soldier Don Jose, sung by returning Brendan Boyle — who sang an amazing Cavaradossi in last season’s Tosca — arrests her.
So Carmen works her magic, and he falls hopelessly in love — or lust — with her. He’s oblivious to the words in her “Habanera,” when she warns, “If you don't love me, I love you. And if I love you, take care of yourself.”
Don Jose becomes obsessed and turns into a murderer, a thief, and then a cold-blooded killer bent on revenge. He gives up his career and his sweet girlfriend and his mother to possess Carmen. And when she leaves him for Escamillo, a famous bullfighter, Jose stalks her and pleads with her to return. She refuses. Don Jose kills her outside of the bull ring, saying how much he loved her.
Audiences were shocked at the violence and the graphic display of sexual passion, that is, as far as one could go in 1875. Even the owner of the Opera-Comique begged Bizet to tone it down.
In 1875, audiences shook their heads at Carmen for bewitching Don Jose, wrecking his career and values, and then ditching him for another guy.
Rogali agrees that blaming Carmen, at that time, probably was the reaction, possibly even the moral of the story. An evil woman turns a good guy bad. Her fault. Not his.
“I think society felt more pity for Don Jose and judged Carmen,” she said. “Audiences at the premiere weren’t ready for a heroine like Carmen… she was too real, too sexual, too defiant.”
That was 150 years ago.
“Today we see it more clearly: Jose makes his own choices, and Carmen simply refuses to compromise who she is,” Rogali said. “Carmen is always honest with Jose. She never pretends to feel something she doesn’t, and she reminds him of this throughout the opera.”
Her punishment? Death.
Bylsma and Norman said audiences can see Jose’s descent into madness caused by his obsession with Carmen. He wants to possess her. Unheard of at this time in history, Carmen makes it clear she will not be possessed.
“To punish her with death for living truthfully and on her own terms is exactly what makes the story so tragic,” Rogali added.
So while Carmen has her flaws, Don Jose is no hero.
“Don Jose is a bad boy,” Bylsma said.
Rogali said she doesn’t have to overdo Carmen’s sexiness to make her a dude magnet.
“She isn’t just a femme fatale or a one-dimensional seductress … that version of Carmen doesn’t interest me,” Rogali said. “The challenge is leaving room for mystery. What is it about her that makes everyone orbit around her? Capturing that complexity is what excites me.”
Norman said tickets are selling well. After all, opera companies must stage popular works to be able to stage something else.
Other cast members are Joshua Jeremiah, Sarah Rachel Bacani, and Jason Budd. Adam Turner conducts, and Jeffrey Buchman directs.
Visit toledoopera.org or call 419-255-7464 for tickets.
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