Michael Hendrick sang with a sturdy voice and ample ardor.
After just a few short months off, when she was presumably up to no good, Bizet’s sultry cigarette girl strutted back into the New York State Theater on Friday night as City Opera revived Jonathan Eaton’s handsome production of ”Carmen.”
The opera, in this vivid traditional staging, was seen here as recently as last spring, but the company has recruited some fresh faces for the current run. Four singers made their City Opera debuts, in major and minor roles.
Among the former was the Israeli mezzo-soprano Hadar Halevy, who proved a suave and alluring Carmen through her self-assured, magnetic stage presence and her soft-edged, velvety voice. Her lower range was less developed, and her rhythm in Act I was sometimes shaky, but at her best, as in her middle and higher registers, Ms. Halevy had a gently glowing tone and a way of gorgeously melting one note into the next.
Opposite Ms. Halevy, as Don José, was Michael Hendrick, whose somewhat stiffer stage presence made him seem more believable as a dutiful soldier than he did as a love-crazed Gypsy convert. Vocally he could not match Ms. Halevy’s seamless legato, but he sang with a sturdy voice and ample ardor in Acts II and III.
In her company debut Angela Fout sang the role of Micaela with a chaste purity and simplicity. Other debuts included Kyle Pfortmiller as the corporal, Moralès, and Valerie Komar as a delightful Mercédès, Carmen’s friend. Kelly Anderson was a capable Escamillo, managing some fancy cape work and a solid ”Toreador Song.” Steven White kept things on track in the pit, and the orchestra competently churned out the Bizet score, which has long since become a parade of operatic greatest hits.
by Jeremy Eichler
The New York Times