“Carmen in less time in front of more people: This promises to be the popular highlight of the OSM summer as announced Tuesday by Kent Nagano,” writes Arthur Kaptainis in Wednesday’s (5/13) Gazette (Montreal, Canada). “The orchestra will perform Bizet’s opera in a trimmed-down version as a free event for untold thousands on the Esplanade of Olympic Park on the evening of Aug. 5. Running time will be less than 90 minutes, not including a choral prologue … commemorating the 70th anniversary of the attack on Hiroshima. ‘We will put it in the form of a Singspiel,’ Nagano said of the abridged Carmen…. ‘We keep the fundamental and very essential musical blocs but condense certain parts into a spoken dialogue.’ ” The opera will be directed by Alain Gauthier, with a cast including Michèle Losier, Joseph Kaiser, and Gregory Dahl. “A more common Beethoven offering will be the Fifth Symphony, which will be given as part of the annual OSM Classical Spree [which] takes place on Aug. 7 and 8 in and around Place des Arts. The repertoire and roster are, as always, varied. Recitals and chamber concerts are intermingled with symphonic presentations and family events.”
Posted May 13, 2015
