<<  -- 5 --  Roderic Dunnett    A SUREFIRE HIT

Secret's orchestra had many fine moments too. Just occasionally a slightly spongy lead (for example, at the launch of Act IV) might have been clearer if he desisted from using both hands, freeing his (mirroring) second for more detailed help to the singers (as when, the whole team, in one sextet, rushed a double-pace passage and slipped as much adrift of the orchestra as the orchestra -- horns, woodwind -- had slipped adrift of itself. Happily things quickly mended : the ensuing section was perfection itself). Just a couple of times there was overbalance -- most notably of Escamillo in Act IV.

Yet overall this was a thoughtful, well-judged, exciting, sexy, often red-hot Carmen: first-class tuning enhanced Bizet's prelude; one passage after the wounding in Act I emerged like a vital Polovtsian Dance; eerie bassoon and bewitchingly Slavonic-sounding paired flutes and clarinet registered in the little Tchaikovskian march early in Act II (and reemerged ravishingly for Micaëla late in Act III); both Secret and the staging effected a splendidly smooth transition for Escamillo's entry (well managed chorus reactions, and Carey Jones opening up with an impressively big romantic sound (abetted by a fine horn passage) that oddly eluded him in Act III; forceful again after a weakish reentry -- Escamillo needs preceding by picadors, for goodness' sake -- in Act IV).

In the Carmen-José exchange, the cor anglais sounded a little too dry: no such problem with flute near the end of the Act, where a luscious glow -- Faure into Ravel -- seemed to descend; or the Hispanic duende-like feel of oboe at the start of the last Act.

The brassy Tchaikovskian glooms (trumpet, trombone) that hung over the girls' card game -- especially daunting here -- supplied one of the orchestra's best dramatic moments of the evening. This thoroughly motivated playing from the Stowe Opera orchestra (rhythmically spot-on tympani and triangle not least) paid rich dividends.

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