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Audrey Babcock a riveting Carmen - Richard Cox's Don José as a jock
Westfield Symphony Orchestra expands its reach
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
By Paul M. Somers

Westfield Symphony Orchestra, David Wroe (conductor), with the Princeton Pro Musica, Frances Slade (preparing conductor). Bizet: Carmen. New York City Opera soloists: Brian Mulligan (Morales), Angela Fout (Micaela), Eric Jordan (Zuniga), Audrey Babcock (Carmen), Richard Cox (Don José), Shannah Timms (Frasquita), Kristin Ruthfuss (Mercedes), Michael Chioldi (Escamillo), Scott Hogsed (El Dancairo), Torrance Blaisdell (El Remendado). Presented by the Garden State Arts Foundation at the PNC Arts Center, Holmdel.

The Westfield Symphony Orchestra and its conductor David Wroe appeared as the final free concert at the PNC Arts Center. Conversation among those waiting for the gates to open was in the nature of "What orchestra is this anyway?" and "Even if they aren't that great they can't ruin Carmen." Conversation at intermission and even more on the way out was centered on "When is their next concert? I want to go to it!" and, doing my job for me, "Wasn't that a great show?"

Yes, it was. This listener has heard Carmen many times (and even conducted it about 30 years ago). This was a riveting performance, right up there with the best (and, just to put things in perspective, the absolute worst I ever saw was an inferior cast at the Met - except for Leona Mitchell in her prime as Micaela).

The orchestra was 38 members of the WSO playing a reduced score version intended for small pits but also serving as a budget reducer in these lean times. They sounded like a full orchestra in size, quality, precision, and color. Certainly no other orchestra which had graced the stage this summer (the New York Philharmonic and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra) could have played the score with such enthusiasm matched with technical assurance. Those wondering how to hear the WSO again had heard quite well.

Since David Wroe is one of the conductors at the New York City Opera, it was no miracle that his singers were all excellent. But there was no doubt about who owned the stage, even when she was sitting down on her chair in the concert opera version of being off-stage: mezzo-soprano Audrey Babcock as Carmen. She was in character at all times, her eyes smoldering, her voice filled with colors as the smallest of nuances generated fine degrees of meaning. She was the candle around which all other characters, male and female, circled like moths.

We had to take some judgments on the voices of the singers on faith, since they were all amplified. For instance, baritone Michael Chioldi's Escamillo spent too much of the opera sounding as if his voice were wooley and covered, lacking in any edge. Then in Act IV it quite suddenly and for no apparent reason became resonant and focused. It was ineffective engineering all along, not any fault in his voice.

That said, there was not a bad voice quality on stage (we'll have to assume they all have power enough to sing with NYCO).

Tenor Richard Cox was a perfect Don José, a real jock looking like a football lineman. In fact I found myself concocting a Eurotrash version with all the guys as athletes and the gals as cheerleader/groupies. This slightly dense tough-guy exterior made his unraveling all the more touching and understandable. It also made Carmen's reactions more than merely whimsical.

Chioldi's toreador (a lean quarterback type) was flashy without being hammy. Eric Jordan's Zuniga was sung very well, far better than one too often hears for this pivotal role with relatively little to sing.

The Act III quintet was bright and crisply articulated. Soprano Shannah Timms' Frasquita had all her high notes in fine fettle giving a sparkling and secure top to what is otherwise a low register cast.

The singers of the Princeton Pro Musica, very well prepared by their regular conductor Frances Slade, were secure and clearly one of the top large choruses in the state.

While the whole orchestra did an exemplary job, we must mention flutist Helen Campo and harpist Barbara Biggers for their fine performance of the intermezzo and hornists Ralph Kelly and Theresa MacDonnell for their solid horn work all evening.

This was a cut version of the full-length opera. None of the spoken dialog (or the recitatives later inserted) were used, and whole scenes were sliced: no changing of the guard scene, for instance, and thus no need for a children's chorus. Instead Mr. Wroe read some letters to "My dear Mama" from her "loving son José." Having never read the Merimée novel, I thought that perhaps the original was in epistolary style, a conceit not uncommon in the wake of Goethe's "Sorrows of the Young Werther." But it turned out to be pure Wroe: he wrote the letters as a solution to the problem of how to move the story ahead without ever-so-pedantically sounding like he was quoting a plot outline. It was quite effective. He told some that he still had one more letter to write - the suicide note of José.

The over 7,000 attendees (the Arts Center holds 8,800) were quite enthusiastic, many from nowhere near Westfield asserting that they intended to drive to exit 135 and hear it all again on Saturday. As it turned out, large numbers did not make the trek. Indeed, the Arts Center perfrmance eclipsed the subscription series event. But this did not dim the importance of the WSO's well-deserved step into a larger more regional limelight.

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