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December 1st, 2008
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Lots of style, but no substance

Karlín may be as close to Broadway as this Carmen gets
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By Steffen Silvis
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
October 8th, 2008 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Pop star Lucie Bílá does a good job with weak material in this lavish production, playing with English surtitles.
Carmen


When: Ongoing, Wed.-Sat. through Oct. 31 at 7 (3 p.m. matinees on Saturday)
Where: Hudební divadlo Karlín (Křižíkova 10, Prague 8)
Tickets: 230-690 Kč, available through Ticket Art and at the venue
Performed in Czech, with English surtitles

The opening night of the Frank Wildhorn version of Carmen at Music Theater Karlín was as close as Prague will likely come to staging a Broadway opening. At least a quarter of the house was made up of New Yorkers, who had flown in especially to see how Wildhorn’s musical fared on a large stage. As no New York backers could be found to mount the show on Broadway, Prague is serving as the site of its world premiere.
Wildhorn is no stranger to Broadway. He’s had many projects, including his musicals Jekyll and Hyde and the epic The Civil War, play along the Great White Way. After seeing the premiere of his Carmen Oct. 2, it was evident why Prague was playing the “out-of-town” tryout center, a role usually reserved for Boston or New Haven. First, this Carmen is a giant piece, a spectacle in the best sense of the word. But, second, inescapably, it’s a rather mediocre work, with a libretto by Norman Allen that only occasionally reaches the heights of doggerel from its level base of drivel (the English surtitles are fairly damning), all ballasting Wildhorn’s competent, pleasant, but ultimately generic score.
If one chooses to do an original work based on Bizet’s monumental opera, one risks odious comparisons. It is impossible to hear Bizet and not absorb his music — the most desultory opera-goer would be able to place the Habanera within its opening bars. Yet, 12 hours after leaving Wildhorn’s show, I cannot summon one song (while doing everything in my power to erase the memory of Allen’s limp lyrics). With no track record of a Broadway hit, Wildhorn will find it difficult to obtain Manhattan backing.
Nonetheless, this Carmen is certainly not without merit. Far from it. As a stage spectacle, it could defeat most of what’s produced at the National Theater and State Opera. The top of Act II, where a cityscape gives way to an advancing circus, is one of the most jaw-dropping pieces of stagecraft I’ve seen in years. This is all courtesy of Gabriel Barre, a respected director who staged the hit off-Broadway production of Wild Party some years back, and who is an old hand at Broadway road shows.
Under Barre’s command, it’s easy to forget that you’re in the refurbished roccoco splendor of a theater in Karlín, and not in one of the stately houses on 42nd street. Barre’s staging is marvelously fluid and inventive, and, occasionally, as with Act II’s top, astonishing. Using the full depth of Karlín’s stage, the circus marches into town complete with acrobats, bearded ladies, clowns, a live tiger and llamas, funambulists and strongmen. It’s a brilliant achievement — so much so that Barre should be given the chance at resurrecting Rogers and Hart’s Jumbo.
For Czechs, the primary draw is singer Lucie Bílá, that evergreen pop star and perennial favorite of Blesk and Šíp. For those who know Bílá mostly by rumor and front-page scandals, it’s another reason to venture to Karlín, as Bílá’s Carmen is electric, if a bit too much at times a star turn. Feline, sensuous, exotic, her Carmen is the femme fatale of troubled sleep. Bílá is also a powerhouse singer, someone who doesn’t need to be head-miked (which actually degrades her top notes at times). The dreaded ubiquity of stage miking is here for good, unfortunately, and so projection is quickly becoming a lost art.
As triumphant (and triumphalist in typical diva fashion) as Bílá is, she shares the stage with some other strong performers, particularly the handsome tenor Robert Jícha as José (shown on the cover), Lukáš Kumprich as Zuniga and Athina Langoská as Vědma, a duende or sorceress who inexplicably haunts the tale.
As the names José and Zuniga signal, Wildhorn has taken the basic plot of Bizet’s opera and Mérimée’s original story (inspired, in turn, by Pushkin), but has transformed it into something less exciting. In many ways, he’s reversed the revolution that Bizet’s radical Carmen started in opera. Whereas Bizet finally defeated the tired conventions of opera comique by taking it to its apex, Wilhorn has returned to the musty format of the exhausted genre. In many ways similar to a contemporary audience listening to Stravinsky, Bizet can still surprise, even shock, with his music. With Wildhorn, you will have spent a pleasant evening in the theater listening to some passable airs, but will remember nothing but a few scattered images.
Oh, but those images!

Steffen Silvis can be reached at ssilvis@praguepost.com


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