Tenor Marcelo Alvarez stands out in Met debut as Don Jose in ‘Carmen’

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This article was published 05/02/2008 (6490 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NEW YORK – They switched operas to suit the tenor, not that anyone would complain about Bizet’s “Carmen.”

The Metropolitan Opera had scheduled Offenbach’s “Les Contes d’Hoffmann” for Monday night but decided last spring to change to accommodate Marcelo Alvarez, who is moving into heftier tenor roles.

The Argentine singer, a former furniture salesman who had not performed an opera until his early 30s a decade and a half ago, did not disappoint in his first appearance at the Met as the obsessed Spanish soldier Don Jose.

Early on, Alvarez had some slight intonation problems in the high register. But his voice opened up during the “Flower Song” and built to the final act in which he poured out his murderous passion as he stabbed Carmen to death in a jealous rage.

Russian mezzo Olga Borodina, who has made the title role one of her signatures, needed no warmup. Her seductively dark voice was on the mark from the opening moments of the “Habanera” to her dying breath. Although she sang with great precision and feeling, her stage presence could have been more alluring. For instance, her table dancing was kept to a minimum in the Act II tavern scene in which she meets the dashing Escamillo.

Portraying Escamillo, Italian baritone Lucio Gallo needed a bit more of the macho swagger of the toreador who would lure Carmen away from Don Jose. In making his Met role debut, his low pitches wobbled just after his entrance, but he found his way in his big number – the “Toreador Song.”

As Micaela, the Latvian soprano Maija Kovalevska gave a heartfelt performance depicting the woman Don Jose spurned for Carmen. The children’s chorus charmed the opera house as they marched around the stage in Act I.

Conductor Emmanuel Villaume opened with a brisk pace and turned in an energized performance through the four-act opera, which has seven more performances through March 1. However, Franco Zeffirelli’s eye-catching production, first staged in’96, should have summoned that musical energy with more Spanish dancing to capture the spirit of Seville.

Although Bizet’s opera predates the verismo period, reality struck in the opening street scene. For one of the two live donkeys, nature took its course just after the animal was led on stage. Without distraction, chorus members trod carefully until someone in costume cleaned up the mess, creating a new role for a supernumerary and producing chuckles from the audience. Luckily, the horses and dogs that also were paraded on stage minded their manners.

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