Carmen bare

On the evening of my premiere here, I was feeling a bit exhausted , as we only had 2 pretty full rehearsals the day before, and the night before that. So back to back Carmens is not really my cup of tea, however I still was excited with the opportunity to have a plain stage with no props , no crowd, no skirts nor castanets to hold on too, nothing really but myself in a little silver dress, and the text and wonderful music to play with.
standing on that bare stage ( only with my Jose in the corner, tied up to his TV chair), I realized that due to the very theatrical nature of this production, I can actually do what I truly love doing : bend the music within its boundaries so the text is as dominant as the notes themselves. and by that, I mean: I might not sing *every* single note text-book operatically, (what my manager is usually opposed to: "They won't know you can SING") but I get the pleasure of communicating what I believe was always and still is the most important thing in this opera: the character her self. ( and I must say that I look up to talents such as Julia Migenes who never compromised her art for the sake of being labeled a "legit"- "opera"- "singer").
Once a critic used these words: "...uses the music like promises and threats, coaxing, cajoling, insinuating, bending the melody", and this time , I took the freedom to (if only a bit) explore this (without effecting the singing *too* much) ,enjoying the chance to be not only a "singer" plugged into a minimal production , but also to recreate this expensive woman from the very basic ingredients that are there: music, text, and myself as their medium.
I think it was very well perceived, and I must say it was a lot of fun.