CARMEN
Where: Royal Theatre, 805 Broughton St.
When: Oct. 12-18
Tickets: $29-$153 from the Royal McPherson box office (250-386-6121) or rmts.bc.ca
The curtain drops next week on Pacific Opera Victoria’s production of Carmen, with mezzo-soprano Carolyn Sproule occupying the title role for the third time in her young career.
According to Sproule, her nerves are in check at this point. Not only does she know what to expect, the 34-year-old Montreal native has begun to put her own stamp on the role. “I get some adrenaline and energy and excitement, but not so much in a fear kind of way,” the Juilliard School graduate said with a laugh.
Carmen is long considered sacred ground, where opera is concerned. Most directors are hesitant to alter aspects of French composer Georges Bizet’s original; simply put, fans are expecting to see the big, bold 19th century love story set during the Spanish Civil War presented on a grand scale. In Victoria, that will be brought about with assistance from Adam Luther (Don José), Lauren Margison (Micaëla), and Jorell Williams (Escamillo) in lead roles, and a creative team that includes conductor Timothy Vernon and stage director François Racine.
The opener to Pacific Opera’s long-awaited season also includes 32 community members in the chorus and 14 singers from the Victoria Children’s Choir.
Sproule said audiences will be treated to a version that is “more or less the way it was meant to be told,” and not a radical reinterpretation. But elsewhere in the world, there are exceptions. “This opera is not at all exempt from modern productions that take creative licence. There was one in London where Carmen comes on dressed as an ape, and removes her head just before she starts singing. I don’t know what that was about, but it was certainly not traditional.”
Sproule was initially going to make her professional debut as Carmen during Pacific Opera’s run scheduled for April 14-26, 2020. Those dates were postponed when the province shut down in-person performances. “This would have been my first Carmen with an established opera company, and I was so excited when I got the e-mail about doing it,” she said.
The upcoming four performances by Pacific Opera, which get underway Wednesday at the Royal Theatre and continue through Oct. 18, are no longer Sproule’s debut in the role. In the two years since the initial postponement, Sproule had the opportunity to play Carmen elsewhere, on two separate occasions.
In the months leading up to the pandemic, and with an extended out-of-town schedule, Sproule opted out of the lease on her Montreal apartment, put most of her belongings in storage, and committed to living a nomadic life. When the pandemic hit, and all concerts were cancelled, she was forced to move back to Montreal, and bounced between her parents’ place and Airbnbs, before securing another apartment of her own.
It was a year before work in Canada would return, she said, so she signed on to play Carmen in Hong Kong, where the effects of COVID-19 were greatly diminished at the time. Sproule was booked to play Carmen shortly thereafter in Finland, but an uptick in COVID-19 cases there scuttled that production. She eventually signed on for the title role for a production with the Houston Grand Opera, which drew raves last year. In his review of Carmen, Houston Press reporter D.L. Groover wrote glowingly about Sproule’s voice, calling it “deep and rich and “radiantly smoky.”
Those are not words that would have described her pre-pandemic voice, Sproule admitted. Now, she can hear the difference in her delivery. “My voice has really opened up.”
There’s good reason for that, Sproule said.
“It was the yoga.”
Early into the pandemic, during her time away from the stage, she did something completely out of character: she travelled to Costa Rica to receive her yoga teacher training certificate. “I hadn’t been exercising, I had gained weight, so it thought it would be a good thing to do,” she said of the decision.
“I went from never doing yoga to 10 hours a day of yoga classes. It was so out of left field. Aside from going to school for singing, it was the best thing I’ve ever done for my singing. It has been completely life changing.”
