Naked Bodies Can’t Spice Up Sf Opera’s Tame ‘carmen’

The news that the San Francisco Opera's summer season would mark the U.S. debut of the Catalan stage director Calixto Bieito inspired a vague blend of eagerness and apprehension. The production of Bizet's "Carmen" that opened over the weekend at the War Memorial Opera House in a pair of performances with alternating casts, is in fact a bland and dismayingly inert concoction at its core. There are several crotch clinches and a quickly simulated act of oral sex that even under cover of a parked car was enough to drive a pair of opening-night patrons from the house. [...] Bieito, to his credit, doesn't shy away from the violence inherent in this work - not only the sexual struggles among the opera's gypsies, workers, smugglers and soldiers, but the political violence implicit in a military presence, which he underscores by placing the action in late 20th century Ceuta, one of the two autonomous Spanish cities in Northern Africa. Bieito and revival director Joan Anton Rechi wrangle crowds deftly - the excitement of the audience for bullfight in Act 4 is palpable, and Ian Robertson's Opera Chorus and the uncredited children's chorus sang superbly - but interactions between individual characters often feel wan and uninflected. The most concentrated dramatic charge during the opening weekend came not from the stage but from the orchestra pit, where conductor Carlo Montanaro made a company debut of fire and steel. If Ellie Dehn's eloquent and tonally voluptuous Micaëla Friday night got at least one vote for the weekend's most impressive vocal contribution - her rendition of the heartfelt Act 3 aria was a small miracle of expressive majesty - Saturday's richly colored company debut by soprano Erika Grimaldi was not far behind. Tenor Brian Jagde, who sang Don José on opening night and will continue in the role through the entire remainder of the run, brought hazy tone and a tentative dramatic presence to the role, although his singing snapped into focus during the final act. [...] there were formidable contributions from the Adler Fellows - Edward Nelson (Moralès) and Brad Walker (Zuniga) as José's fellow military men, and soprano Amina Edris as Frasquita - as well as from Renée Rapier, Alex Boyer and Daniel Cilli (an entertainingly twitchy bundle of nerves) as the rest of the smuggler gang.