Joyceless Carmen

Even without DiDonato's promised debut, Bizet's masterpiece delights

Elena Maximova (Carmen) and Michael Spyres (Don José) Picture by Nicolas Roses

Carmen, one of the most frequently staged of all operas, in concert? Well, this performance in Strasbourg was planned as the basis of a new Erato (Warner Classics) recording, originally to be conducted by the John Nelson. The American’s interpretations of Berlioz with French orchestras, including the Philharmonique de Strasbourg, have been gracing the catalogue from as far back as 1991 (Béatrice et Bénédict, Opéra de Lyon). His Strasbourg recording of the choral-vocal symphony, Roméo et Juliette, with Joyce DiDonato, Cyrille Dubois and Christopher Maltman, has just been released.

DiDonato was to have premiered her first ever Carmen at the performance on April 4 - I attended a second on April 6 - and there was even talk of her making her stage debut in the title role at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. It was not to be.

Whether or not the American mezzo had second thoughts about a role unquestionably written for her voice-type, though subsequently coveted by sopranos including Maria Callas, Victoria de los Ángeles, and “in-betweener” Jessye Norman (on disc, at any rate), she pulled out after Nelson had called in sick. A repeat concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall on April 14 was cancelled for the same reasons. The 81-year-old conductor suffered a stroke from which he is slowly recovering and DiDonato had only agreed to perform and record Carmen because of their twenty year Berlioz collaboration: Benvenuto Cellini (2003), La Damnation de Faust (2019) and, especially, their award-winning recording of the Virgilian epic, Les Troyens (2017).