Sometimes opera performances are dominated by a single singer. That was the case Friday evening when Mill City Summer Opera opened its new staging of Bizet's "Carmen" at Mill City Museum in Minneapolis.
Mezzo-soprano Audrey Babcock has sung the part of Carmen more than 150 times. The experience showed in her nuanced, smoldering portrayal of the fiery gypsy stalked by an obsessive ex-lover. Whether unzipping an orange suggestively or running a practiced foot along an army lieutenant's groin, Babcock's Carmen simmered with sensuality. But her proud, principled embrace of the bohemian lifestyle — and her refusal to be trammeled by the men in her life — lent ballast to the sex kitten manipulations.
Seductive? Yes, but Babcock was a thinking Carmen, too, a woman who knew her worth and had no intention of letting it be diminished.
Vocally Babcock had the part nailed, too. Light and playful in numbers such as the Act 1 set-piece "Habanera," her voice expanded thrillingly in the later confrontations with Don José, while never losing a satisfying bloom and plenitude.
Compared with Babcock's consistently galvanizing performance, the rest of the production made an occasionally patchy impression.
Act 1 suffered from some labored tempos, and generally lacked the fizz required to set the drama running. Carmen's famous "Seguidilla" lumbered to begin with, never quite recovering its infectious sensual energy.
Director Fenlon Lamb blocked the crowd scenes effectively, although the gorgeously wafting, kinetic music of the girls from the cigarette factory was hitched to a disappointingly static stage image.
The Act 2 encounter between Carmen and Don José had sharper focus. Throughout the famous "Flower Song," Babcock kept her back turned, in simmering counterpoint to Bizet's gorgeous melody. Tenor Adam Diegel sang the aria passionately, with a ringing sense of romantic yearning.
