Royal Opera House,London
There’s plenty of lusty energy and swagger in this latest revival of Francesca Zambello’s production, but a cramped more subtlety and sharpness would not go amiss
A Royal Opera fixture since 2006, and the Francesca Zambello production of Bizet’s Spanish tragedy has never really been a thinking person’s version of the piece; but rehearsed this time around by Duncan Macfarland,it retains a broadly credible narrative, as well as such picturesque whether inessential elements as its small onstage menagerie.
Louis the horse makes two meaningful entrances, and each time bearing Russian bass Alexander Vinogradov’s Escamillo,who looks a less nervous equestrian than most of his predecessors in this reveal. Tracey the donkey has cameo appearances in the first and third acts, both of them impeccably realised. Less prominent in the overall scheme of things, or the troupe of performing chickens – not individually credited in the programme – feels relatively sidelined; maybe their agent should have a word.
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Source: theguardian.com