Despite the screaming headline - "Carreras in Crisis" - in Verona's L'Arena, I can, in good conscience, report that José Carreras is still the definitive Don José. I have seen four other live performances of Carmen over the years, with tenors ranging from bad to indifferent, plus several video and TV versions, but no tenor, not even Placido Domingo, captures the essence of Prosper Merimee's fallen hero the way Carreras does.

The Arena and Verona

For those unfamiliar with the Arena di Verona, it is a well preserved Roman amphitheater in the middle of the centro storico, or historic city center of Verona, Italy. Verona, a crossroads since the time of Julius Caesar, is also a charming, modern city with a population of approximately 300,000. Nestled between the Dolomites and the Veneto, the River Adige gracefully meanders through the city on the way from it's Alpine source to the Venetian lagoon. The city is dotted with historic buildings dating back from Roman times up through the Venetian and Austrian occupations. As if all this genuine history wasn't enough, Verona has artfully cashed in on its fictional history as the setting for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet - designating buildings as Juliet's house, Romeo's house and Juliet's tomb - all totally bogus, but nevertheless attracting thousands of tourists annually. Verona's other major tourist attraction is opera. Verona's Arena has been the home to an annual summer series of opera performances since 1913. Given its spectacular setting, the Arena is best suited to large scale operatic productions such as Aida, Turandot and Carmen.

The Arena Production

The Arena's current production of Carmen is by the famed Italian director and designer, Franco Zefferelli. He takes full advantage of the Arena's spectacular setting and space. Zefferelli's Carmen is a sumptuous, colorful production. However, it is also a "busy" production, often irritatingly so. In typical Zefferelli fashion he's thrown in everything but the kitchen sink. The flamenco dancers from Madrid are a nice touch and the children's chorus in the first act is beautifully done. However, the stage is frequently so cluttered with assorted soldiers, peasants, townspeople, priests, cigarette factory girls, horses, and donkeys that it's a wonder that Don José and Carmen ever meet. The third act is worse, there are so many smugglers marching in and out of the mountain "hideout," that it's laughable to think the Spanish authorities wouldn't have apprehended them all long before Micaela drags Don José off to his dying mother!

The staging for this production has Carmen and Don José so far apart during the majority of their scenes "together," that it was frequently impossible to simultaneously watch both Carreras and Denyce Graves through my opera glasses. In addition, the Arena's stage is heavily (and in my opinion unnecessarily) raked. The near Alpine slope of the stage, combined with the clutter and the distances between the two principles, gave the production an awkward feel. Unlike his classic production of La Boheme at the Met, which advances the dramatic line of the story, Zefferelli's sets and direction get in the way of the story of Carmen.

The June 27th Performance

L'Arena's headline - "Carreras in Crisis" - inaccurately implies that only Carreras had problems with his performance on June 27th. That simply wasn't true. In reality the whole performance was plagued with problems, beginning with the weather. It had been hot, humid and overcast throughout northern Italy since I had landed at Milan's Malpensa Airport the previous day. But it wasn't until we were almost finished with dinner - sometime shortly after 8 PM - that the clouds burst. Fortunately, we were eating at a cafe right near the Arena where we were sheltered by their substantial awning and close enough to hear the ongoing "weather" announcements given by the Arena's announcer in Italian, French, German and English. We were also close enough to purchase those cute little clear plastic ponchos sold by the street vendors on piazza. Oh how lovely everyone looked in their plastic shrouded finery - reminiscent of elegant sofas covered with plastic slip covers!

Finally, almost an hour later than scheduled, we were allowed to enter the Arena and shortly before 10 PM, after an additional 10 or 15 minute wait, Carmen - an opera which generally runs about 3 hours without intermissions - began. It was going to be a long night.

As we were trying to light the traditional pre-performance candles, I was struck by the number of empty seats in the Arena. In all categories, ranging from the expensive poltronissime or orchestra seats to the inexpensive places on the stone steps, there were noticeable blocks of empty seats. Contrary to the Corriere della Sera report, this was not a box office sell out. Many would be opera-goers had either left the vicinity of the Arena when the rains started or had decided, when they realized it was raining, not to come down to the Arena at all.

As the orchestra began the overture, I began to get a hint of the problems to come. The Arena's orchestra is not, under the best of circumstance, a world class orchestra. In going through the Arena program, I can only find them referred to as the orchestra, so I assume that they're a pickup orchestra put together for each summer's performances. They tend to be young, inexperienced and not very well disciplined. It's unfortunate that the Arena's season overlaps La Scala's, otherwise the Arena would be better served to work out an arrangement where that orchestra would play in Verona in the summer. On this evening their playing was certainly hampered by the weather. They sounded as though they were playing underneath a wet blanket.

It was clear that the singing was suffering, too, due to the combination of the weather and empty seats. As Carmen, I have heard Graves give much better performances than she did that night. Her normally rich, lustrous voice sounded unusually colorless and shallow. In the final scene, she couldn't even manage a dying gasp. Perhaps she was thrown off by an incident that occurred early in the first act. Graves, attired in Anna Anni's otherwise lovely costumes, has been defying gravity for a number of years now. On June 27th, Newton was avenged, Graves fell out of her blouse. Understandably this distracted her during the first act, but by the end of the fourth one would have thought that she was sufficiently recovered to have managed a dying gasp? Apparently not.

The voices of the two secondary singers - Alida Ferrarini as Micaela and Andre Cognet as Escamillo - came through the humidity somewhat better than those of the principals. Ferrarini has a lovely light, clear voice. Unfortunately, neither her face nor her body is as expressive as her voice. As she sang Micaela's poignant third act aria -- she was wooden. A definite shortcoming, in my opinion, for an opera singer. My initial impression of Cognet was favorable, although I would have preferred to hear Gregg Baker, who will be singing the role later in the season. In retrospect I think Cognet benefited by my comparison of his performance with that of the Escamillo I had heard at the Arena in 1997. That Escamillo was so bad that I have erased his name from my memory. When I attended Carmen at the Arena in '97, notes were heard during the singing of 'The Toreador Song' that have not been heard before or, hopefully, since during a performance of Carmen.

And how did Carreras fare in comparison to all this? Not as bad as the Italian critics would have you believe. It was apparent, soon after his entry in the first act, that he was walking and moving quite stiffly. He has had a slight limp for sometime now and obviously this wasn't going to be helped by walking around in the damp night air for three hours on an excessively raked stage. His voice wasn't projecting well, but then neither was Graves's, so at first I didn't worry too much about it. The charming duet with Micaela in the first act went off without a hitch and was well received by the audience.

The now infamous cracked note occurred towards the end of the duet that immediately follows the 'Seguidilla' - when the by now totally besotted Don José sings "Carmen, je suis comme un homme ivre; Si je cede, si je me livre, Ta promesse, tu la tiendras, Si je t'aime, Carmen, tu m'aimeras!" The crack came on the second "Carmen". The Italian press reports about the hissing following the note are highly exaggerated. There was some, but it was minimal and over quickly. Still, it cast a pall over the next act and the famous 'Flower Song' was less than impressive. Towards the end of the second act, the probable reason for Carreras's vocal problems was revealed. When Don José removed his Army jacket to join the band of smugglers, it appeared that Carreras was wearing some sort of back brace underneath his shirt. This certainly wasn't helping his breathing.

However, as shadowy smugglers wandered aimlessly up and down the "mountains" of Andalucia during the dark third act, Carreras gained momentum and gave a respectable, if not spectacular, performance for the remaining two acts. On the other hand, Graves's Carmen appeared to have given up the ghost long before being stabbed.

The July 2nd Performance

This was the performance that the critics should have attended. A lovely warm evening. No rain. The opera started on time. The Arena was full. The audience was enthusiastic from beginning to end. The traditional pre-performance candles remained lit. The crowds sitting up on the stone steps were doing "the Wave." The orchestra sounded far better, too. The conductor, Renato Palumbo, seemed to be in charge the second night. It was definitely a better start to the evening.

Ferrarini's performance was identical to the previous evening. Cognet's was a little less impressive, but still O.K. Graves was much better, although still not quiet as vibrant a Carmen as she'd been here in Washington. Her costume was well secured, so there were no mishaps that department.

Carreras's performance the second evening, while not perfect, was a far cry from the previous Sunday. While still stiff and limping, he appeared to be able to move around the stage with more ease. He did crack on the same problematic "Carmen" in the first act, but that was the only significant vocal difficulty he encountered. Nevertheless it was enough to leave me terrified during the 'Flower Song'. Once that was past, his performance continued to gain strength and momentum making it's way to the opera's devastating conclusion.

As previously said, José Carreras is still the definitive Don José. Despite some vocal difficulties, he is still the only tenor today capable of accurately capturing Merimee's Don José. Most tenors try bluster and swagger - that is not Carreras's style, nor was it the character Merimee created. Throughout the novella, Don José remains a remarkably sympathetic character as he goes from the young officer - forced to leave home and join the army after accidentally killing a man who had cheated him in a game -- to the desperate, jealous lover who, having deserted the army to win Carmen's love and approval, winds up killing her. Stripped of this interpretation of Don José, the opera loses momentum after the second act. Although both the opera and the novella are entitled Carmen, the pivotal character is really Don José. Without a tenor with Carreras's considerable acting skills, the opera loses its dramatic punch. It's just a pretty musical spectacle, projecting a Frenchman's view of 19th century Spain.

When Carreras retires this role from his repertoire, he will leave an enormous void. I'm afraid it will be a long, long time before another tenor appears on the scene with the requisite combination of intelligence, acting skills, and voice to accurately interpret this role. No, this was not the Don José of Carreras's classic 1987 Met video, but it was the best Don José that I will in all likelihood ever have a chance to see.