Backgound, Ethnicity, and Carmen

Here, as promised, is my post about Carmen.

First of all, I should say that my first experience singing opera, as distinct from legit musical theater or Gilbert and Sullivan, which I had been singing since I was six, was when I was 14 and my large multiracial Brooklyn high school (white) glee club teacher decided that the way to get kids interested in opera was to have a girl sing the Habanera and a boy sing the Toreador Song at the annual glee club concert.

So there were auditions. And I auditioned. Four other girls auditioned. I was the only Caucasian. The girl that got the gig was African-American and sang the Habanera like a rock song. To put this in context, I no doubt sang it like Julie Andrews singing "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" from My Fair Lady which would have been just as inappropriate. The other girl probably did sing better than I did and if the glee club teacher had said something low-key like "Well, this time _______________ did sing better than you did, but maybe you can sing something next year", that probably would have been the end of it. Instead, the teacher said "Well, dear, I wouldn't worry too much about this. Singing is part of _________'s heritage, you know. You are on the Math Team because your father is a professor of engineering." Lucky I didn't grow up to be a Tea Bagger. On the other hand, her saying that was probably just as racist as my snit, more so since she was an adult and should have known better.

In any event, I have spent years wondering whether or not there's a connection between ethnicity and singing, ethnicity and rhythm, ethnicity and uptightness. I thought about this incident again yesterday because I both saw the telecast of this year's production of Carmen (which I had seen live with a different cast) and also read an article in Opera News about opera singers who grew up in the African-American church.

My parents defined themselves as "New York Intellectuals" and I was exposed to everything from Cole Porter to Rogers and Hart to Gilbert and Sullivan to, yes, opera, which I didn't much care for until I got into High School. But they were also militant atheists so I grew up sans choir immersion.

Was I uptight? I never particularly thought so (I am certainly not a prude) on the other hand I come from ultra-WASPy Brooklyn Heights. And 40 years later the mentor who changed my life forever while intermittently tormenting me said I had less sense of rhythm than anyone he had ever met.

Be that as it may, I sing the Habanera every chance I get (see profile picture), strut my stuff, and hand out flowers, sometimes to people in nursing homes, sometimes to children having a party to send them off to Bible Camp.

As for last night's Carmen I had seen it live with my idol
Olga Borodina who despite some excess pounds is the sexxiest creature on earth, and the young
Brandon Jovanovich who was a close second. The production was riveting and exuded sex from start to finish. Every detail was perfectly conceived.

I was prepared not to care much for Elina Garanca because although she is a beautiful woman with a beautiful voice, she just isn't Carmen to me. I adored her as Rosina and Cenerentola, but worried that she would be too "soubretty" for Carmen. She surprised me, and I admired her artistry, but never quite got carried away by her the way I did by Borodina, perhaps because in the telecast I got too many views of her expensively capped teeth (definitely un-gypsylike) and pert little nose.
Roberto Alagna isn't my favorite tenor from a purely vocal standpoint, but he also did a superb acting job, capturing the character's randy loser essence.

All in all, it was a delicious experience, and just reinforces my determination to sing this role in its entirety before I die, even if it's just in a vanity production where we sing from books.