Hearing the frothy and ultra-familiar strains of the Carmen overture rising from the Granada Theatre orchestra pit last week had the combinative effect of cultural comfort food and a freshly scrubbed welcome mat. It’s official now: Opera Santa Barbara (OSB) is back in season. The strains of Bizet’s brightly lit music, crisply played and conducted by OSB’s formidable director Kostis Protopapas, struck an ideal introductory chord (or set of chords) by which to launch into the 30th anniversary of Santa Barbara’s ambitious opera company.
Of course, the score’s hale, bounding cheer and Spanish musical flavors through a French composer’s filter tell one part of the story. Carmen herself (beautifully sung and portrayed with proper mix of lust and control by OSB first-timer Sarah Saturnino) is a more complicated bunch of people, a manipulative seductress — a rebel with claws — headed for a downfall by the final act.
Hapless soldier Don José (rigorously and passionate sung by Nathan Granner) is the man in a dizzying middle zone or two, tempted by our “sorceress” anti-heroine and tormented by the compromised moral fiber which binds him to his truer love Micaëla (glowing-toned Anya Matanovic) and his ailing mother. Also in the precarious mix of characters is a bullfighter and would-be Carmen lover Escamillo (all due brash charm and garrulous sonorities from baritone Colin Ramsey).