Fatal, fresh and feisty

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This article was published 12/04/2024 (872 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ginger Costa-Jackson has been killed dozens of times. David Pomeroy has more than 100 impassioned murders under his belt.

The stars of Manitoba Opera’s latest presentation of Carmen are experts in their respective roles, having performed regularly as the sensual Carmen and jealous Don José for companies around the world.

Still, each rendition of Georges Bizet’s famous 1875 tragedy offers something new.

“People say, ‘Oh, you must be sick and tired of that opera,’” says Pomeroy, a tenor hailing from Newfoundland who has been playing José for 20 years, including during the last local staging of Carmen in 2010. “No, because every situation is different, it’s never the same.”

As one of the most popular operas in the world, Carmen has been reimagined in countless ways. In a German production, for example, Pomeroy was tailed by an unsettling green clown acting as José’s subconscious, with his beloved mother portrayed as a blinking eyeball on a television screen.

Regardless of the treatment, it’s a challenging role he cherishes.

“You really need to be a singing actor; you need to be willing to go outside of your comfort zone,” Pomeroy says. “Your emotions are on your sleeve. There’s nothing fake about it.”

For Costa-Jackson — an Italian-born mezzo-soprano — the character of Carmen shifts depending on her stage partner.

“It’s the energy they’re giving you,” she says. “You need that obsessive jealousy that brings (José) to the breaking point, and David has that in spades; he’s definitely someone who can be a lover and a fighter.”

During Costa-Jackson’s Manitoba Opera debut tonight, Winnipeg audiences can expect an extra feisty take on the title character.

Set in Spain, the story follows Don José, a soldier who abandons his hometown sweetheart Micaëla (played by Winnipeg’s Lara Ciekiewicz) after being seduced by the self-possessed Carmen. She grows tired of her new suitor’s overbearing behaviour, however, and pursues the handsome bullfighter Escamillo (Daniel Okulitch) instead.

It’s an infatuation with deadly consequences.

“She dies because she tells a man no,” says Costa-Jackson, who sees Carmen as a feminist figure. “That martyrdom seals with blood her testimony that women need to be able to choose. I love that about her.”

This is the seventh time the local company has mounted Carmen — although this production’s première is four years late. Rehearsals were underway in March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down stages everywhere.

“It’s a little bit like doing the time warp,” director Brian Deedrick says. “To come back into the same spaces with the same props, same set … but a different paradigm, a new world.”

This is Deedrick’s first time tackling Carmen and it’s been a mammoth undertaking for the theatre and opera director from Edmonton. “I’ve never had an opera with so many moving parts,” he says.

This particular iteration — originally designed for the Edmonton Opera — is set in the 1930s, which has little effect on the storyline but requires more modern costuming. Deedrick — who has an affinity for busy, complex staging — isn’t aiming to re-invent the wheel, but he is hoping to give audiences something to talk about.

After nearly 150 years, why has Carmen retained its appeal?

“This is such a great story because it’s part soap opera and part hero worship,” Deedrick says. “And this music is in people’s heads. I’d defy anyone to sit through Carmen and not say: ‘That song is familiar, I’ve heard that somewhere’ — very often it’s from a toilet paper commercial or something, but they’ve heard that piece of music.”

Limited tickets remain for the three performances.

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com

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