Five Dazzling San Francisco Opera Carmens

By Roger Pines

Of the forty-two singers who have portrayed Carmen at San Francisco Opera, most of them can be heard on YouTube in the complete role or excerpts. Below are some particularly distinctive interpreters. (The year each artist sang Carmen in San Francisco is indicated after that artist’s name.) Photos Courtesy Of Rudi Van Den Bulck/Charles Mintzer Collection

Ninon Vallin (1934)

This incomparably musicianly French singer, queen of the Opéra de Paris in the 1920s and ’30s, who debuted with San Francisco Opera in 1934, recorded Carmen’s four arias and the final duet (the latter with Charles Friant, a superb partner). Although a lyric soprano, Vallin possessed a terrific lower octave, full-toned and colorful. The Act I arias are shaped with refreshingly unforced charm and serene confidence. An absolute delight in the “Seguidilla,” Vallin lives every word (listen to her burst of laughter when Carmen remembers her latest cast-off lover). In marked contrast, no one sings a more moving card scene, with the legato taut yet still flowing and the final phrases full of foreboding. GF

Seguidilla: "Près des remparts de Séville" 

Lily Djanel (1946)

Like Vallin, the Belgian soprano, a celebrated Tosca and Salome, also boasted the necessary darkness of tone for Carmen. Recorded live in 1943, she’s uniquely bold in her expressive freedom, singing in a manner that seems almost improvisatory. Clearly a born singing actress and invariably electrifying, she doesn’t preoccupy herself with perfect vocalizing in perfect taste. An intriguingly feline quality frequently colors the portrayal—one never knows where this Carmen is going to pounce! Djanel constantly digs into the text, revealing the essence of a captivatingly vibrant but always dangerous woman.

Card Scene: "En vain pour éviter"
From 1:32:29 1:35: 17 in the clip (complete live performance of the opera)

 

Winifred Heidt (1948, 1949)

Singing in English at the Hollywood Bowl in 1946, the American mezzo brilliantly projects two particularly vital elements of Carmen’s character—her charm and her fearlessness. Heidt possesses that rare thing, a true Carmen voice. Especially notable is her skill in creating the right balance between her sound’s lighter and darker shadings. She offers many other strengths as well: spot-on pitch, splendid flexibility and dynamic variety, elegant phrasing, pristine textual projection, and above all, a palpable joy in performing.

Final duet (live performance in English, with Ramón Vinay as Don José)

 

Claramae Turner (1951, 1953, 1955)

YouTube offers a single Carmen track by the American contralto, her glorious “Habanera.” A thoughtful interpreter, Turner never allows her luxuriantly warm-toned instrument to overwhelm the music. Her surprisingly light, entrancingly elegant approach is immeasurably enhanced by flawless French diction. Unexaggerated savoring of the text includes the subtle but striking emphasis this Carmen gives to her knowing declaration that “love has never, never known a law.”

Habanera: "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle"

 

Grace Bumbry (1966)

In a 1967 film based on the previous year’s Salzburg production, the American mezzo is at her most dazzling. Her vocalism throughout the role offers remarkable beauty of tone. She’s as characterful in her “Habanera,” with its refreshing sense of fun, as in her thrilling card scene, richly voiced in a powerfully direct, unfussy interpretation.

Chanson Bohémienne: "Les tringles des sistres tintaient"
1:33 to 6:14 in the clip (portion of 1967 film of the complete opera)