Getting Busy with Bizet in Blackheath
The excitement created by the orchestra fizzed through the audience like an electric storm – and they were only warming up! – but with police corruption, murder, thievery in the docks, street fights, and cat fights in the factory, this was more like Bermondsey than Blackheath, writes Michael Holland.
The opening bars of Bizet’s Carmen stirred the loins, stiffened the sinews, summoned up the blood and made you want to march around with your chest out in the graffiti-covered town square, strewn with cans, where the local militia are bored and strutting with their chests out as they flirt to the point of harassment with the local factory girls.
Carmen (Kate Bray) enters the arena and shows that she is someone who never takes no for an answer. She lets men know that they should beware, yet few take heed. You know that when she sets her eye on Don José (Oliver Johnston), already semi-engaged to Micaela (Meeta Raval), it is not going to end well.
Like a fool, José quickly falls in love with Carmen, and when Micaela brings a letter from his lonely mother to return home, he is torn. But the love is so strong he forsakes his career, turns to crime, and to stalking Carmen, who quickly loses any feelings for him when the successful toreador, Escamillo (Chuma Sijeqa) arrives in town, glistening with glitter and songs of power. Add in other would-be suitors and the love triangle becomes a pentagon of unrequited love, with Carmen in the middle, teasing and pleasing with her songs and moves and very little else.
Sung in English, this classic opera is non-stop action, leaves little time to work out the where and why, but plenty of time to enjoy the incredible voices of the Blackheath Halls Opera, ably supported by the Blackheath Halls Orchestra (led here by Christopher Stark), the Blackheath Halls Youth Company, Blackheath Halls Chorus and numerous other people behind the scenes putting this magnificent production on – often with over a hundred on the busy stage performing! There are no weak links in this incredible chain of high-octane, unmissable events directed by Harry Fehr.
Yes, the Blackheath Halls Opera is playing on home ground, but this production is world-class and could hold its bloodthirsty head high anywhere they like good opera.
And hats off to: Tom Butler, playing a rather seedy character called Morales, who began his own operatic journey right here as a child; Laura Sparkes, who has performed in the chorus of all twenty operas; and Liz Glasser and Sue Rayner, who have played in the orchestra for all twenty operas.
The journey for Blackheath Halls Opera continues.
