Music: Cleveland Opera

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Carmen was the best show in Cleveland's opera week. Newton Diehl Baker was lustily applauded when he entered. (Later an alert observer saw him pay for some punch with an old-fashioned big $1 bill.) Carmen, unlike murky Tom-Tom, was spirited, colorful; its settings a sunburned tan for daytime, a vivid purplish grey by night. There were many ballets; some starkly modern, some in hippy rumba style, one a whirlwind affair with the performers, in long green robes, mounted on horseback. Only unreal touch: the undersized, obviously stuffed bull dragged in at the last. The audience was bothered the first night by "Canadian soldiers" (Ephemeridae, big-winged lake flies, called "Yankee soldiers" in Canada), but well pleased were they, especially with Mary Garden; Garden escaping the guards at the end of the first act. dashing through the Spanish village with the whole company at her heels; Garden clicking her fan; Garden driving in with Toreador Escamillo (Baritone Mostyn Thomas) in an open barouche with a spanking pair of white horses; Garden being brayed at by a restless little donkey.

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