Tuesday, July 22, 2008; Page C05

The Washington Post

'Carmen' Rises to Lowered Expectations
Summer Company Follows Familiar Formula'

It is everybody's right to fall in love with bad opera. August Everding, the late stage director and a leading light of the German theater world, who was responsible for plenty of bad opera in his day, said this to me many years ago. He was offering support for the provincial opera houses in German cities like Pforzheim or Passau, where people outside metropolitan centers have a chance to experience live opera for themselves.

We in America can't afford year-round opera companies of any size; even the Metropolitan Opera plays only about seven months a year. So we very much need companies like the valiant Summer Opera Theatre to keep the dream alive, providing aspiring singers and operagoers alike with our own form of what Everding meant by "bad opera."

Let me be clear: If the term "bad opera" applies, it is not the fault of the Summer Opera Theatre, which opened its "Carmen" on Sunday afternoon at the Harman Center for the Arts, a stylish venue for a company that usually plays at Catholic University. The occasion was the second production of the company's 30th anniversary season; "Carmen" was the first opera it ever put on. This "Carmen" was the result of a lot of hard work, and it was certainly at the level of any adequate regional production. The conductor, H. Teri Murai, led an eager student orchestra with commitment and sensitivity. The singers worked their tails off, not to mention their voices. The willing chorus members threw themselves into any number of roles. And the enchanting children's chorus bounced across the stage with tiny voices as light and ephemeral as soap bubbles.

The "bad opera" part has more to do with stereotypes about opera and the way "Carmen," in particular, tends to be approached. This work is seen as the quintessential opera spectacle: You have bright circus costumes, Gypsies and soldiers and toreadors, and lots and lots of catchy music. This leads many directors to take the kitchen-sink route, throwing every available body onstage, preferably with a few live animals in the bargain.

If David Grindle, who directed this "Carmen," had had live animals at his disposal, you better believe he would have used them. As it was, he had to settle for the best spectacle he could summon on a limited budget. The result: as much color and swagger as possible with rented soldiers' uniforms and shiny Gypsy outfits, in a veritable rainbow of glitz.

Shallow pageantry is fine if mere spectacle is the point of the exercise. But opera can be so much more. "Carmen," in particular, is rich in character and psychological subtlety, if one cares to mine it. Grindle, apparently, did not. Carmen's entrance was representative: As the music announced a big moment, she made her entrance being groped by a male admirer, whom she dealt with through a well-placed kick to his nether regions. This is cartoon, not drama. It signaled to the audience that Carmen would be played as a Gypsy from Central Casting. Teresa Buchholz, in her company debut, sang generally well, with a round, strong voice, but she -- like so many other Carmens through the ages -- had to contend with a black fright wig and lots of hip-swaying and wiggling in lieu of an actual character interpretation.

Musically, she was the backbone of the cast. Singing Don José required tenor Benjamin Warschawski to put a lot of pressure on a voice that was essentially too fragile and brittle to sustain it. Thomas Beard, an alumnus of the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program at the Washington National Opera, swaggered through the almost impossible role of Escamillo -- impossible because the showstopping entrance piece, the "Toreador Song," sits too low in the voice for any baritone to project it well -- with a blunt, blustery and not unlikable sound. Lara Colby was a competent Micaela, her soprano taut though a little flat on the high notes; Damian Savarino was an appropriately oily Zuniga (who in this production is murdered by the outlaws at the end of the second act); and Lisa Archibeque stood out in the small role of Frasquita, thanks to her firm and musical soprano.

This small company is worthy of support. One can appreciate that it has done its best to mount a large-scale production on a shoestring budget. But one also remembers just how powerful a stripped-down "Carmen" Peter Brook was able to create in the 1980s, using only a handful of singers on a bare earth floor. Sometimes less is more. And sometimes opera companies (from the Summer Opera Theatre to the WNO) could do more thinking about the real purpose of the shows they are putting on: about how to elevate their product from the level of "bad opera," important though that is, to actual art.

--Anne Midgette