When I try to explain to my non-opera-going friends why they should try it out, I often find myself explaining that, thanks to the magic of subtitles, it is now for us what it long has been for the non-English-speaking West: a marriage of serious drama (or excellent comedy) with the best of music, acting, and stage work — what Wagner called “the complete art form.” The stereotype of large women in horned helmets warbling silly nothings comes largely from the period when American operagoers had lost the language skills that our great-grandparents had, either as European immigrants or European-admiring, upper-class swells. Opera, no longer understandable as drama, had to become simply spectacle. Basically, everyone went to see the 50 or so works that are so good musically that you would listen to them even if you had no idea what was going on, while the directing was aimed at that lowest common denominator. Now, thanks to technology, it is returning to its serious — or comic — roots.
But. But, but, but. There are some things that cannot be intellectualized, and indeed the attempt to do so cheapens them. And ultimately, putting aside all the diva-ish-ness of the divas, disregarding the type of opera fan who likes to chatter about how he saw Netrebko in Vienna in 2003 and, darling, you simply had to be there, cutting through the clippings of the critics who will tell you that the third lead was a little sharp last night — ultimately, there is the wonder of the human voice.
Some feats compel attention in and of themselves. The swish and crack of a bat and a Bryce Harper home run flying 450 feet into the upper deck. Odell Beckham Jr. turning backward, leaping in the air between two defenders and catching a pass one-handed for a touchdown. Aigul Akhmetshina, a petite Russian mezzo-soprano emptying the perfect harmonies of Carmen from her lungs into all of the air in the 3,850-seat room inside the Metropolitan Opera, filling it with the exquisite vibrations we call music, reaching the person in the furthest row of the highest balcony yet sounding like she’s whispering right into your ear.
Because one other thing that my non-opera-going friends are often surprised to find out is that opera singing is completely unamplified. Unlike a Broadway production of Hadestown or a Beyonce concert, anything you’re hearing is coming purely from the singers’ own lungs, not speakers. Only live sports, as far as I’ve encountered, conveys the same wonder of sheer human achievement. And every time I hear someone particularly fine at the Met, the world’s largest opera hall, it fills me with amazement. For you not only need to be able to fill a space that big, but also, to be good, you need to be able to fill it with every possible shade of meaning, color, and intensity. You need to sound like you’re whispering sweet nothings or shouting angrily, summoning God to your aid or calling drunkenly for another cup of wine.
And let me tell you, Akhmetshina is really good. This was her first time starring in a Met production, and if you want to be able to say to one of those toffs who brags about who they saw when in Vienna that you saw someone before they were a star, get to the next one of her shows as soon as you can. The short version of her short career: Akhmetshina was discovered in 2018, when, as a 21-year-old understudy, she subbed in at the last moment at Carmen at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. She speed-ran the third- and second-lead apprenticeship that can sometimes take decades, and this year has starring turns as Carmen around the world: at the Met, the Royal Opera House, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Bavarian State Opera, and the Glyndebourne Festival, as well as other performances in Rome and Naples.
I’ve been excited about this production since I saw Akhmetshina perform an opera-in-concert production of Vincenzo Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi at the Salzburg Festival. An opera in concert is basically the musical equivalent of a read-through of a stage play: there’s the music and the singing, but no acting. And aside from her obvious and incredible musical gifts, the evening reminded me of a read-through I’d once seen Paul Giamatti do, in which, from a seated position, his personality filled a huge room. Akhmetshina has the same rare dramatic presence. And Carmen, whose mezzo-soprano title role displays a range from seduction to proud independence to vulnerability and more, is a perfect vehicle for someone with these gifts.
Akhmetshina was complemented superbly by conductor Daniele Rustioni and the Met orchestra, who justly received the kind of warm applause for the Entr’acte, the sweet-melancholy piece for flute and orchestra that precedes Act 3, that the Met audience usually reserves for a touching aria from a singer. Unfortunately, director Carrie Cracknell’s production of this Carmen did not match the star caliber of its singers. The setting in “a contemporary American industrial town” has been done to the classics for the better part of a century now, so you had really better have something new to add if you do it. Meanwhile, the director’s aspiration to impart new feminist content to Carmen appears to have overlooked the quite formidable feminist (not to mention humanist) content Bizet put in Carmen 150 years ago.
Musically, Angel Blue also deserves particular mention as an affecting Micaela. Together, the leading ladies rather left the two gentlemen (tenor Piotr Beczala as Carmen’s lover-turned-murderer Don Jose and bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen as the toreador Escamilla) in the dust — though only by comparison. But at the end of the day, Carmen is about Carmen. If you have ever wondered how something that seems so boring as the opera you have seen portrayed in movies can draw crowds, well, sometimes to be hooked, you just need to see something amazing. Akhmetshina’s performance is a good place to start.
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Nicholas M. Gallagher is a lawyer and culture writer.
