Meet Our Singers: ANITA RACHVELISHVILI, Carmen

I was thrilled before rehearsal began this morning to sit down with Anita Rachvelishvili, who made a tremendous impression when she sang Carmen at La Scala in 2009 and at the Met last fall. A native of Tbilisi, Georgia, Ms. Rachvelishvili is making her Seattle Opera debut with this production, singing opera’s favorite femme fatale. We spoke about the opera scene in her native Georgia, her experiences singing Carmen on the world’s great stages, and some of the character’s psychological problems.

You’re new to Seattle Opera...welcome! First things first, can you help us with the proper pronunciation of your name and, while you’re at it, that of your hometown?
Yes, my name is Anita Rachvelishvili (rotch-VELL-esh-VEEL-ee) and I was born in Tbilisi (tBEE-lee-see).

And how did you first get involved in opera?
When I was 17 years old, my father had the idea of sending me in for voice lessons because, when I was a girl, I always had this big voice and liked to sing all day long. I had studied the piano already, but he found a voice teacher and encouraged me to study voice. And I didn’t go along with it! Opera was a brand new world for me, and at first I didn’t like it.

Had you ever been to an opera?
No. I had heard Pavarotti on TV, that kind of thing, but I’d never been to an opera and I thought, “Oh, no, I don’t want to be an opera singer!” It was so unfamiliar. But I studied with this teacher for a year, and she told me my voice was perfect for opera, so I enrolled at the conservatory in Tbilisi. My teacher there was a mezzo soprano who sang with Tbilisi Opera, we had a wonderful relationship, but sadly she was sick with cancer, and after she passed away I continued my studies in Milan, at the Academy of La Scala.

What was the best thing about your time there?
I met my boyfriend there! He’s a tenor, he was in class with me, and we go together to the same teacher. Today our teacher is in Rome, and we still go there together, for lessons.

Do many opera singers from Georgia go to Milan for their training?
Yes, they all do. There are many fine Georgian singers.

The Tbilisi Opera

Tell us a little about the opera house in Tbilisi.
It’s a beautiful antique theater, over a hundred years old. It’s closed right now, for remodeling. In fact, the biggest opera house in Georgia that's open today is in Batumi, on the Black Sea, it’s an old city but nowadays everything there is new. They have a beautiful, big new theater. And we have another opera theater in Kutaisi.

Do they present operas in Georgian?
Yes, we have lots of beautiful operas in Georgian. I hope to sing Georgian opera in Europe or America someday!

And Russian repertory?
Yes, we do a lot of Russian operas in the theaters in Georgia, as well as Italian, of course, and French. Not too many British operas—I love Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, but haven’t yet had a chance to sing it.

What are your favorite roles?
Well, Carmen, of course. And I love Dalila, and Charlotte in Werther.

Anita Rachvelishvili as Carmen in a rehearsal with Donovan Singletary as Zuniga

You’re doing well with these French operas! What about the Italians?
Yes, I’ll be making my role debut as the Princess de Bouillon in Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur after I leave Seattle in November. We’re doing a concert, one performance only, at Carnegie Hall, with Angela Gheorghiu and Jonas Kaufmann, and the Opera Orchestra of New York conducted by Alberto Veronesi. As for other roles in Italian, I’m hoping someday to sing Amneris in Aida. But not yet!

There’s an opera you’ll want to sing at La Scala.
No, no! I must do it in a smaller theater first.

What’s your favorite Russian role?
I love The Tsar’s Bride by Rimsky-Korsakov, it’s really beautiful. I will sing Lyubasha in Berlin in a few years.

Let’s talk about Carmen. You’ve now sung the title role in the world’s most beloved opera at both La Scala and the Met, two of the world’s most important opera houses. What were those debuts like? Sounds like a high-stress situation...
No, it was molto tranquillo. Before I did Carmen at La Scala, I had six months of preparation with a woman who had coached Maria Callas. She was working with me on the role, the French text and the music, all the dialogue, even before my teacher taught me to sing it. And then working with Daniel Barenboim and with Emma Dante, who directed the opera at La Scala.

Director Bernard Uzan works with Rachvelishvili and her Don José, Luis Chapa, at a rehearsal in Seattle

So you couldn’t possibly have been more prepared.
You know, when I see that performance now, I don’t much like it...it’s been two years, and I think I’m much better now, of course! But I’m happy because it was a really successful debut, and it was an important step in my career.

And when you sang it at the Met?
It was a curious story at the Met--there was a plan for another singer to do it, but she canceled when she became pregnant. She was to do it there and in Munich. And the Met had me signed up to sing it in 2012, but I was happy to do it early!

What’s the most challenging thing about performing Carmen?
The first half of the opera, Act One and the first part of Act Two, is really a lyric mezzo soprano part. But the finale of Act Two and Acts Three & Four are more dramatic, because the character has changed. I like to sing dramatic parts, but it’s not so easy for me to sing the first part.

What, for you, is the most fun or enjoyable thing about performing Carmen?
The Habanera. That’s where she has the most fun--and she is a very funny woman, she’s got lots of energy. And at the top of Act Two, where you have all these dancers treating you like a queen--who doesn’t love that?

You get to be Cher, with all these dancers swirling around you.
That’s a very fun part. And I love the Seguidilla, it’s so beautiful. And so is the final duet with José at the very end.

Bernard Shaw once wrote that the appeal of Carmen lay in seeing a “respectable middle-class young lady...harmlessly pretending to be a wicked person.” Do you agree or disagree?
(Laughs) I disagree, of course. We have to take Carmen’s problems into account, her psychology. You know, she has no family, she is entirely alone. You cannot be normal when you don’t have a family, don’t have anyone in your life. She has these "friends," you know...

But how intimate is she, really, with Frasquita and Mercédès, Dancäire and Remendado?
Exactly. Everyone needs someone to talk to, to tell a friend what’s in your heart. Carmen doesn’t have such a person. She is alone, egoista (selfish). And extremely strong. It’s not easy to be like this. I can only imagine her strength. I have a family, my boyfriend, my friends...she has to go it alone.

Does she miss an opportunity to make this kind of connection, with José or Escamillo?
Yes, because it’s not in her nature. She wants to be free. Of course she wants to find “Mr. Right,” she’s a woman, we all do. Perhaps she sees a potential in José, but he isn’t that strong. He is too jealous and she doesn’t like it. She may want to see some other kind of man in him...but we know that it’s wrong to try to change another person. It doesn’t work. If you want to love someone, you have to love him as is.

Anita Rachvelishvili and Luis Chapa in rehearsal

Yeah, honestly, does she ever really think she’s going to succeed in making a great bandit out of José? That he’ll just desert the army and become the kind of guy who will really excite her?
Maybe she has this dream.

But he’s never going to be that!
Why not? She doesn’t give up on him. He does desert; she gets him to go with her. It’s true, that doesn’t make her happy, because in the end he’s not the person she wanted him to be. But...she made a mistake.

Do you think she threw the flower at the wrong guy?
I don’t know, maybe she should have thrown it at Zuniga!

Carmen: Director's Talk

Meet Director Bernard Uzan and go inside the first week of Carmen rehearsals where you can see both casts at work and hear the voices making their Seattle Opera debut. Uzan describes and demonstrates why this production is worth seeing, no matter if it's the 100th time you've seen Carmen or if it's your first opera ever.

Learn more about Carmen on the Seattle Opera website.
BUY TICKETS HERE

CARMEN: First Photos from Rehearsal!

Rehearsals for Seattle Opera's upcoming production of Carmen kicked off last week, and we have a peek inside the rehearsal studio for you. Check out these photos below for the first look at our two wonderful casts, and come back soon to read Q&As with our artists, as we get to know them better in the days leading up to October 15!

Seattle Opera General Director Speight Jenkins and Carmen Director Bernard Uzan share a laugh during rehearsal. Sitting behind them are both our Carmens:Malgorzata Walewska (Sunday/Friday performances) and Anita Rachvelishvili (Saturday/Wednesday performances).

Georgian mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili, who makes her Seattle Opera debut on opening night as Carmen, works with director Bernard Uzan.

Mexican tenor Fernando de la Mora (making his company debut as our Sunday/Friday Don José) reels in his Carmen, Polish mezzo Malgorzata Walewska.

Director Bernard Uzan gives Seattle Opera Young Artists David Krohn (Dancaïre) and Andrew Stenson (Remendado) some blocking involving delicious Seville oranges.

Anita Rachvelishvili (Carmen) and bass-baritone Donovan Singletary (Zuniga), with Mexican tenor Luis Chapa (our opening night Don José) in the background. Singletary made his Seattle Opera debut earlier this season as Jake in Porgy and Bess, and Chapa will make his U.S. debut in Carmen.

Anita Rachvelishvili (Carmen) and Luis Chapa (Don José).

Seattle Opera Young Artists Amanda Opuszynski (Frasquita) and Sarah Larsen (Mercédès).

Photos by Alan Alabastro

CARMEN: Smoking at the Opera

Carmen may have been the first (unwitting) advertisement for smoking cigarettes.

Situating Carmen as an employee of a cigarette factory was entirely plausible--the cigarette industry in Seville has a centuries-old history--and having Carmen make her entrance cigarette in hand immediately established her as the self-possessed, tradition-be-damned woman that she was. (Photo, above, of Geraldine Farrar from the 1915 film.)

But how could Carmen’s creators have ever known that their decision to put a cigarette in the hand of their desirable leading lady, offering cigarette smoking a certain sex appeal, would be an idea that films and advertising would use forevermore? Just the other day, tobacco researchers in the UK called for tighter control of how films represent smoking; The Independent had the story.

When Carmen arrives on the scene in Act I, with the other factory workers after their siesta, the workers, or “cigarette girls,” as they are often called, sing the praises of “la fumée,” likening it to the intangible quality of a “lover’s sweet words”:

In the air, our eyes follow the smoke.
Watch it rise towards heaven,
smelling sweetly.
It billows around your head
and gently carries you away.
A lover’s sweet words--they’re smoke!
Their passions and speeches--smoke!

And the guys who show up to watch them every day just eat it up:

Look at them, so brazen, so flirtatious...
Each of them with a cigarette between her teeth...

At the Vietnam National Opera in Hanoi, earlier this year, the curtain rose to let these men get a glimpse of the cigarette girls at work inside the factory for the smoking chorus:



But like any love affair--whether with a temptress like Carmen, a group of men outside a factory ogling the women who work inside, or a tobacco product--it gets complicated.

In this case, the complications--state tobacco laws, city building codes--manifest themselves more in the tasks and jobs of the props department than the storyline. In Seattle Opera's current production, Carmen will still be smoking, an act that may either attract or repulse you, depending on your point of view. But she won’t be smoking tobacco.

Today, the women’s chorus smokes “Puff Cigarettes,” which the props department purchases at a magic store in Pike Place Market. The factory workers will be “smoking” the prop-cigarette, a convincing replica, replete with brown filter, red sparkles and foil at the tip, and powder (or “smoke”). The puff you see is produced when they blow into the cigarette. (The Seattle Opera Chorus doesn't inhale!)

If we look back a few Seattle Opera productions, the story was different. In the 1970s, the props master went out and bought a carton of Marlboros (unless there was a request for a different brand or for clove cigarettes). Health or vocal chord risks notwithstanding, the chorus smoked the real thing onstage, and patrons and staff could partake themselves in the lobby and backstage.

In spite of Carmen’s timelessness, times have changed.

Our artists relations manager, for instance, thanks his lucky stars that he no longer has to navigate travel agencies to get singers on non-smoking flights back to their far-flung homes. And it’s interesting to note that four years ago, the cigarette factory in Seville shut its doors. The New York Times covered the story.

What do YOU think? Does the cigarette in Carmen's mouth make her sexy, or the opposite? What are your smoking-in-the-theater stories and/or memories?

Post by Jessica Murphy

Carmen Video: Behind The Scenes - Youth Chorus

The children’s chorus in Carmen—albeit so cute they melt your heart—has a tough job each night as they perform very challenging music. This video follows their progress in vocal coachings, to costume fittings, to delivering top-notch performances in rehearsals.



Learn more about Carmen on the Seattle Opera website.

BUY TICKETS HERE

CARMEN and the Bulls

Carmen is the only popular opera that prominently features bullfighting. The opera’s "Toreador Song," that noted earworm, describes a bullfight, and the opera’s final scene opens with the procession of picadores, banderilleros, and finally the matador (Escamillo) into the arena. View this sequence from Francesco Rosi’s beautiful 1981 film version of Carmen here.

In recent years, bullfighting has become extraordinarily controversial; some champion it as an art form while others declare it a cruel blood sport. In fact, although bullfighting still thrives in parts of Europe and Latin America, it will be banned in Catalonia (the Spanish territory where Barcelona is located) beginning in January 2012.

Bullfighting 101
Because attendees at Seattle Opera’s Carmen are unlikely to have experienced a live bullfight, we wanted to give you some information about this culturally important tradition. In a traditional afternoon at the arena, three matadors, each with their various teams of assistants, fight two bulls each. An individual bullfight is divided into three parts:

Tercio de Varas (Third of Lances)

In the first stage of a bullfight, the matador gets his first look at the bull he’ll be going up against. After he uses a cape to make a few passes at the bull, two men on horseback—the picadores—ride out into the arena, armed with lances. [Left: A picador at a Mexican bullfight.] The horses are blindfolded, to keep them from getting spooked, and wear thick padding to protect them from the bull’s horns (this wasn’t always the case; before padding became common in the 20th century, horses were frequently gored). In this round, the picadores use their lances to stab the bull’s neck, weakening the muscles in preparation for the final stage.

Tercio de Banderillas (Third of Flags)

In the second stage, three men—known as banderilleros—enter the ring on foot, each carrying a pair of brightly decorated sticks (banderillas) with barbs on one end. Each banderillero must plant the barbed end of the stick into the bull’s shoulders, further weakening the neck and shoulder muscles and resulting in greater blood loss. In this photo, Spanish matador El Fandi uses a risky technique to place the banderillas.

Tercio de Muerte (Third of Death)

The final stage, which takes fifteen minutes or less, is what most people think of when they imagine a bullfight: the matador, carrying a sword and a red cape, re-enters the ring to face the bull alone. Bullfight fans, or aficionados, often refer to bullfighting as a performance art—not a sport—and the interaction between matador and bull in the Tercio de Muerte can indeed resemble a dance. The matador conducts a series of passes using his cape, and the closer he allows the bull to his body, the more highly-prized the performance is.

While the preceding two rounds are utilitarian in nature, the Tercio de Muerte is a deadly show (almost certainly for the bull, and possibly for the matador). Eventually, the matador maneuvers the bull into place and goes in for the killing blow, or the estocada (as pictured above, during a bullfight in Colombia). The goal is to cleanly thrust the sword between the bull’s shoulder blades, severing the aorta and delivering a quick death, further ensured by an assistant who severs the bull’s spinal cord with a small knife. If the matador has done a poor job—perhaps he struck a lung, instead—he may switch to a different sword, designed to puncture the spinal cord and paralyze the bull immediately.

Depending on the perceived valor of the matador, the official presiding over the bullfight may award one or both ears and/or the tail of the bull to the matador as a trophy.

And Did You Know...?

• In Spanish, a bullfight is known as a corrida de toros ("running of bulls"). "Toreador," the term for a matador used in Carmen, is actually very rarely used in the world of corridas; torero is the preferred title.

• The matador’s cape in the final tercio is red to hide bloodstains—not to infuriate the bull, which is actually colorblind.

• Traditionally, bullfighting is for guys; in 1908, Spain even passed a law banning women from performing in the ring. The restriction was eventually lifted, but female matadors are still rare, and face immense opposition from audiences and colleagues.

• Bullfighting is mostly practiced today in Spain, Portugal, France, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and Peru. Ecuador has a long tradition of bullfighting but, earlier this year, Ecuadorians voted to continue bullfighting so long as the bulls aren’t killed. (A form of bloodless bullfighting exists in many parts of the world, including the United States.) Spain’s Catalonia and the Canary Islands have also banned bullfighting.

• It’s not very common, but it is possible for a bull to survive the fight. If the crowd is particularly impressed by the animal’s performance, they can request for it to be freed. The bullfighter will perform a symbolic estocada with the palm of his hand, instead of the sword, and the bull will live out the rest of its life as a stud. Here’s a video of a bullfight where the crowd’s persistent cheering led to the bull being set free (you can see the symbolic estocada at around the 9:15 mark).



What does it have to do with Carmen?
It is often said that bullfighting is not only part of the Spanish setting, it’s a metaphor for the relationships between characters in Carmen. But that metaphor may shift, depending on your personal interpretation of bullfighting. Or, for that matter, your personal interpretation of the opera. Is the bull a powerful adversary, a thing to be respected and feared? Is Carmen the bull, too wild to be allowed to live? Or is the bull just an unwitting victim, helpless and doomed? Is José the bull, cornered and provoked and finally led off to the slaughter? Why does Bizet accompany the moment when José stabs Carmen with the cries of enthusiastic bullfight aficionados coming from the ring?

Too Much Sex & Violence at the Opera?

In just a few weeks, rehearsals will begin for Seattle Opera’s upcoming production of Bizet’s fiery Carmen—an opera that has seduced audiences worldwide with its string of incredibly memorable tunes, and a very sexy title character. (Right, costume design by Heidi Zamora for the title character.)

So sexy, in fact, that Carmen—a cigarette-smoking temptress, the original femme fatale, who casually toys with the affections of men—shocked audiences at the Opéra-Comique in Paris at the 1875 premiere. In one of the first reviews, publication Paris La Patrie described Carmen as “a savage; half gypsy, half Andalusian; sensual, mocking, shameless; believing neither in God nor in the Devil … she is the veritable prostitute of the gutter and the crossroads.”

“A plague on these females vomited from hell!” opined Paris Le Siècle. “Ingenious orchestral details...cannot express the uterine frenzies of Mlle. Carmen.”

Carmen opens on October 15, and it will be the 8th time Seattle Opera has produced it. (Check out our Facebook page for a photo retrospective of our past Carmens.) Earlier this week, looking through our archives, we came across audience critiques of our 1995 production that sounded fascinatingly similar to reviews of Carmen from 120 years earlier. By Seattle Opera’s own admission, the 1995 production was an “R-rated Carmen for adults.” In a column for the Seattle Times that year, Melinda Bargreen wrote: “A production such as Seattle Opera’s current Carmen, set in Franco’s Spain in the 1950s and heavy on the shock value, is a jolting reminder that this opera is about more than picturesque gypsies.” (Bargreen goes into more detail in her official review of the production.)

Vinson Cole (Don José) and Graciela Araya (Carmen) in Seattle Opera's 1995 production of Carmen.
Photo by Gary Smith

So controversial was the ’95 production that the Seattle Times set aside space, two Sundays in a row, for several impassioned letters to the editor.

“This Carmen exudes violence and vulgarity,” wrote one Seattle Times reader. “…Of what value other than tasteless titillation is it? I would be ashamed to take my mother, and afraid to take my child. I don’t think this was what Bizet had in mind.”

“Some of the silly antics were unbelievable,” wrote another outraged reader. “And the tavern scene? It is what is being given to us on TV that we abhor so much: guns, sex.”

And from yet another reader: “Well! Well! Did you happen to hear that terrible rumbling sound the other night at about 8 p.m.? It was Bizet turning over in his grave!!! … Tasteful? I should say not! It was repulsive! … Let’s keep everything in its place, and leave the operas the way the composers intended.”

From left to right: Graciela Araya (Carmen), Paul Gudas (Dancaïre), Kathryn Garber (Mercédès), Marc Acito (Remendado), and Dana Johnson (Frasquita) in Seattle Opera's 1995 production of Carmen.
Photo by Gary Smith

In response, the Seattle Times asked readers to participate in a telephone poll, and pick one of two statements: “Bravo, Seattle Opera!” or “Shame on you, Seattle Opera!” (The bravos won, 672 to 515.) And the following week, theater critic Misha Berson wrote a column defending Carmen, and bringing some historical perspective to the mix. “It is historically myopic to accuse anyone of ruining Carmen by making it sexy and violent,” she wrote. “If Bizet had wanted to match his glorious music to a fairy tale, he would have done so. Instead, he pushed the envelope.”

In a final batch of letters to the editor, a Seattle Times reader agreed with Berson’s take.

This opera is not about colorful gypsies and animal husbandry; it is about lust and murder.

For those offended by this Carmen, I suggest they read (and understand) the librettos of other popular operas that they have been ignorantly enjoying. They will find infanticide (Il Trovatore), incest (Siegfried), adultery and murder most foul (Rigoletto), fornication (La bohème), guns (Tosca), child abuse (Hansel and Gretel), poisoning (Simon Boccanegra), blatant sexuality, nudity and murder (Salome), and on and on. This is the reason we enjoy operas; that and the beautiful music.

Indeed, the plots of our operas this season feature drug addiction and murder (Porgy and Bess), sexual obsession, bullfighting, and more murder (Carmen), crazed hordes razing cities to the ground, lust, treachery, vengeance, and even more murder (Attila), and bigamy and suicide (Madama Butterfly). Only in Orphée et Eurydice do they live happily ever after...and even that happy ending is wishful thinking on the part of the Enlightenment (the original myth has an ending that's extremely gruesome, even for myth). But aren't these extreme experiences the very ones that are worth singing about?