In preparation for the 2013-14 season of Opera Lyra Ottawa, Apartment613 attended a partial dress rehearsal of Carmen, which will launch the group’s 29th season on September 7. Below we report on the final preparations behind the scenes.
Rehearsal Room B at the National Arts Centre is not what you’d expect. It’s a stark room, with stacks of chairs around the edges and the lights a standard fluorescent. It does not seem like a place where you would expect grand artistic productions to be created.
A small group of people are gathered along the back end of the room, with some cameras set up, pointing at the empty space in front of a rust-coloured curtain. It seems more like we’re waiting for an announcement from a school principal than to see a partial dress rehearsal of an opera.
Then the music starts. The piano plays a few dramatic bars and Alessandra Volpe (playing the title role of Carmen) sings two words, “C’est toi!” instantly answered by David Pomeroy (playing Don José) who sings, “C’est moi!” and the magic begins.
Setting is irrelevant in the presence of such talent.
Opera Lyra Ottawa launches its 29th season on Saturday, September 7, with a full stage production of Carmen on the main NAC stage. Georges Bizet’s masterpiece is one of the most recognized and most performed operas in the world. Set in Seville, Spain, this love story tells the tale of the beguiling gypsy Carmen and her lovers – most notably Don José, a naive soldier who becomes obsessed with her.
Like many operas, it’s a tale of love, hate, jealousy, revenge, sex and murder. The score is beautiful, instantly recognizable – you’re likely already familiar with the music – and the story is timeless.
“(Opera) is big, like a hockey game or a rock concert,” says Sheilagh D’Arcy McGee, in charge of media relations for Opera Lyra Ottawa. “You just have to let it wash over you.”
The cast for this production is young, with the main roles held by artists in their thirties. Some may be surprised to learn that few of the performers started out in opera, and that they from various musical backgrounds.
Arminè Kassabian. Photo by Noelle Garnier
Ottawa’s own Arminè Kassabian (who plays Mercedes, a friend of Carmen’s) started out as a pianist at the Royal Conservatory here in Ottawa.
David Pomeroy (playing Don José) was a heavy metal singer in his late teens and early twenties. Then the lure of the opera stage attracted him.
“It’s the spectacle,” he tells me. “Being up on stage is like being a rock star.”
Corey Crider (playing Escamillo, the toreador who wins – however briefly – Carmen’s heart) was all about rock. For him, opera is as relevant today as popular music. “If it didn’t mean anything it wouldn’t still be around,” he says.
Cory Crider. Photo courtesy of Opera Lyra.
Opera, like every other passion, is not easy. There is natural talent of course, but that talent has to be trained, honed and shaped until it becomes the astonishing instrument we see and hear on stage.
It also is not lucrative as some may thing. One of the performers confessed that they sometimes have to pick up a restaurant job to make ends meet during their down time – sound familiar anyone?
So why do it? Why should anyone care about opera in this day and age? Because this isn’t an antiquated art form. Carmen was published in 1875 and it is still being performed on stages, all around the world today.
Opera was the pop culture of its time. The stories are archetypal, full of human emotion and human hearts, and those stories are timeless. They are worth remembering, worth retelling and certainly worth keeping alive for future generations.
Performances of Carmen are scheduled for September 7, 9, 11 and 14. All shows start at 8 pm. Tickets start at $25 and, as always, Student Rush tickets are available.
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