Carmen in the OC

Every once in awhile I'm reminded how truly enormous Segerstrom Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center really is. Not to be confused with the newly opened Segerstrom Concert Hall across the street, the original Segerstrom is a 3,000 seat cavern with seating spread out among jagged tiers in the auditorium space. Usually, though, I'm seeing big ballet in there and it fills the stage space and the energy of, say, the Kirov, American Ballet Theatre or the Hamburg Ballet beams loud and clear into the farthest reaches of Tier 3.

But last night, I felt so far away at Opera Pacific's Carmen. For some reason, where I was sitting in Tier 3 (a bit off to the side), the orchestra sounded muffled and soft. There were some imbalances in the sound, like a footfall on the stage would overpower the brass section, or a single horn would suddenly find itself louder than every instrument around. Some of the singers sounded soft and the stage looked like it was enormously far away. OK - so fact is, the stage was enormously far away, but truthfully also, I've seen shows there (like Audra McDonald in solo concert, or Urinetown, the little Broadway musical that could) where things haven't felt so far removed.

Maybe because I was tired: the drive down from Los Angeles was especially bad and traficky yesterday. Or maybe it was the show. I mean there wasn't anything exceptionally bad about it... it was pretty well sung, especially by Milena Kitic as Carmen, and the chorus sang well and provided good, non-overacted background to the action. The staging was straightforward without adding much new interpretation. The sets and costumes were fairly garish though: a deep red floor, and sets done in bright yellow paneling, and in act 1, bright blue costumes for the cigarette factory girls against that red and yellow - ew. Physical production wasn't elaborate though, and left a lot of stage space open for us to notice how friggin' enormous OCPAC's stage is in addition to its auditorium.

Who knows? I enjoyed myself, certainly, but wasn't thrilled or especially moved by the evening. Carmen, written with a French libretto by George Bizet, is famous for its saucy heroine, but aside from the tuneful famous songs, I didn't find it an especially compelling opera. The music just didn't grab a hold of me the way it does in Boheme or Zauberflote. The production itself was pretty blah, but fairly good for a regional opera company I suppose. LA Opera did a production a few years ago that had enormous, gorgeous sets from a production in Madrid - so perhaps I was spoiled by that.

Kurt Weill theatre/opera tonight: Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny with Audra McDonald and Patti Lupone at the LA Opera tonight. My expectations have been set low, with mixed reviews from everyone who has seen it so far. I'm still thrilled to see Audra though!