By Ray Bennett
A long overdue visit to London’s Royal Opera House Friday was a revelation. The vast gorgeous white complex, overhauled in the 1990s, is breathtaking even before you enter the beautiful auditorium. The prices are jaw-dropping but when the production is as good as the current “Carmen,” the rewards are enormous.
Home to the Royal Opera, the Royal Ballet and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, the Covent Garden edifice is a national treasure and well worth a visit if you possibly can. Here’s an except from a review of “Carmen” by Hilary Finch in the Guardian.
“Both the Spanish mezzo Nancy Fabiola Herrera and the Argentine tenor Marcelo Alvarez have the measure of their relationship – they have sung the roles together already at the Met. Herrera’s high vocal intelligence is the equal of the cunning of this Carmen.
Her words are threaded in taut, sprung rhythms within an entirely secure and eloquent vocal range. And Alvarez … sang with strength, almost total focus and a moving sense of helpless emotional disarray.”