{"id":12808,"date":"2011-02-17T17:40:15","date_gmt":"2011-02-18T01:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/?p=12808"},"modified":"2011-02-18T07:20:44","modified_gmt":"2011-02-18T15:20:44","slug":"carmen-in-3d-julian-napier-2011-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/?p=12808","title":{"rendered":"Carmen in 3D (Julian Napier, 2011): UK"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy<\/a>.\u00a0 Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Arlington Theater.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0 “Toreador, en garde!\u00a0 Toreador!\u00a0 Toreador!”\u00a0 In a stroke of brilliance, RealD, the leaders in 3D technology, have\u00a0teamed up with London’s Royal Opera House to produce the first opera ever\u00a0in 3D, which premiered on closing night at the SBIFF as Carmen in 3D<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Carmen (Christine Rice) is a seductive gypsy, who enjoys the sport of tempting and taunting her prey, and then discards them\u00a0within a few\u00a0months.\u00a0 She is employed at a local cigarette factory when she notices\u00a0the handsome corporal Don Jose (Bryan Hymel).\u00a0 Carmen\u00a0begins to ensnare Don Jose\u00a0with the seductive words “Prends garde a toi!” (You’d best beware!) from her Habanera<\/em>\u00a0of love.<\/p>\n

Soon after, Micaela (Maija Kovalevska), Don Jose’s hometown sweetheart,\u00a0 brings a message of\u00a0love\u00a0to him from his mother, and explains her illness.\u00a0 As his\u00a0heart warms, he reminds Micaela of his intentions to marry her.<\/p>\n

Back at the factory,\u00a0the rough and tumble Carmen\u00a0becomes engaged in a knife fight with another woman.\u00a0 After being arrested, she is in the custody of Don Jose, whom she seduces and he succumbs.\u00a0\u00a0He then\u00a0leaves\u00a0his\u00a0post and\u00a0they run off together\u00a0to set up housekeeping amongst gypsies and smugglers.<\/p>\n

Enter Escamillo (Aris Argiris), a confident and masculine bullfighter.\u00a0 He proudly belts out the Toreador<\/em> song and flirts outrageously with Carmen.\u00a0 She becomes interested while Don Jose becomes increasingly jealous, to which there is a tragic ending.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Royal Opera House production of Carmen <\/em>was directed by Francesca Zambello, while the\u00a0filming\u00a0 (live audience as well)\u00a0was directed by Julian Napier, and as operas go,\u00a0this\u00a0production was\u00a0both thrilling and\u00a0engaging .\u00a0 The difficulty\u00a0in performing Carmen, lies not only in the diva’s ability to\u00a0master the arias, but she must\u00a0also perform alluring dances, and seduce Don Jose as well as the audience.\u00a0 The problem with transitioning live opera to film, lies in the ability of the camera to love the diva, which is\u00a0extremely difficult, considering the diva has auditioned for a live performance.<\/p>\n

The story of Carmen<\/em> is of a beautiful temptress, who literally has guys falling all over her.\u00a0 She’s not a lady, but she has what it takes to steal Don Jose away from the sweet Micaela.\u00a0 Having seen many productions of Carmen <\/em>over the years, my recurring\u00a0complaint is that Carmen really ought to be a knockout and far\u00a0more alluring than Micaela, especially\u00a0in film,\u00a0but alas there are no more\u00a0Rita Hayworth types around.<\/p>\n

In playing to the camera (I can only suppose), this performance of Carmen is by far the raunchiest\u00a0I’ve seen –\u00a0\u00a0legs spread\u00a0open\u00a0and ready for that kitchen table thang.\u00a0 Also, there seemed to be a problem at one\u00a0point in the production\u00a0with Rice’s bustier, but due to the magic of editing,\u00a0her\u00a0bustier flatly disappeared and then fully\u00a0re-appeared, in tact.<\/p>\n

There were\u00a0two annoying issues regarding the screening.\u00a0 The first were the\u00a0\u00a0sub-titles, which\u00a0is different\u00a0for a live opera\u00a0than film, from which I could not\u00a0make out many of the words, but find this recurring problem in many a sub-titled film.\u00a0 The\u00a0print needs to be set in bold black or yellow lettering.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Secondly, it was great to screen Carmen in 3D <\/em>at the historic Arlington, but they really ought to have those velveteen curtains as in the Lobero, since the main doors continually opened and closed throughout, casting a harsh glare on the 3D glasses to those of us sitting to the right.<\/p>\n

Is opera in 3D the wave of the future?\u00a0 Well, I asked the guys at RealD and they intimated their intentions\u00a0to produce another opera in 3D – I put in a request for Madama Butterfly<\/em>.\u00a0 Supposedly, the timing was right with Carmen<\/em>, since RealD was gearing up for this\u00a0historic 3D\u00a0event\u00a0at the same\u00a0time the Royal Opera House was preparing their production.<\/p>\n

Does it replace live opera?\u00a0 No, but it’s a good substitute, especially if\u00a0a screening offers a production of an opera that is not available that season or locally.\u00a0 Annoyances that must be tolerated are\u00a0the comings and goings of an audience that can’t sit still long enough to wait for the intermission, and then there are the\u00a0ones that must continually stuff their gob w\/food,\u00a0or the texters,\u00a0the talkers, etc.\u00a0 I am NOT a fan of 3D, however, watching Carmen <\/em>in RealD, felt similar to watching a live opera through opera glasses!\u00a0 It was good, it was entertaining, and it was worth it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy.\u00a0 Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Arlington Theater. \u00a0 “Toreador, en garde!\u00a0 Toreador!\u00a0 Toreador!”\u00a0 In a stroke of brilliance, RealD, the leaders in 3D technology, have\u00a0teamed up with London’s Royal Opera House to produce the first opera ever\u00a0in 3D, which premiered on closing night at the SBIFF as Carmen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,146],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-santa-barbara-film-festival-2011"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12808\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}