Carmen’s Don Jose: Diego Torre speaks with Murray Dahm
I spoke with Diego Torre ahead of Carmen on Sydney’s Cockatoo Island, in which he takes on the role of Don Jose.
Diego Torre as Don José and Sian Sharp as Carmen in Opera Australia’s 2022 production of Carmen on Cockatoo Island.
I opened our discussion by pointing out that Diego had just finished performing the role of Forresto in Verdi’s Attila (1847) and that Bizet’s Carmen (1875) must be a very different singing experience. Diego agreed that they were very different styles but that the roles “keep the same essence of an honourable man giving himself to love.” The setting of this Carmen, in keeping with the industrial ruins of the island, is set in a semi-contemporary 1950s world with big-finned cars and bikers, rock’n’roll and microphones (prop-ones in addition to the headsets each performer will wear to actually capture their voices).
This is Diego’s fourth Carmen, although it is his first in Australia. Here we are much more used to hearing him in Italian repertoire. I asked if it was the same technique for both Italian and French opera “totally, totally. It should be the same. It really doesn’t matter how different the repertoire is; the vocal technique should be the same because it is only one instrument, one voice, one throat, and you cannot change that.” He added that “of course, stylistic singing is what changes – the way that you breathe, the way that you keep the line in French repertoire; legato is more important, long phrases. But these are technical issues for the repertoire but not for the voice itself.’ The language is an easy switch for him because both are Romance languages and close to his native Spanish.
His bringing up of Spanish led me to ask about Zarzuelas, and I admitted to knowing only a few recordings with Placido Domingo and Alfredo Kraus – he told of Domingo’s parents running a Zarzuela company in which a young Domingo used to sing (as a baritone). But again, Diego pointed out the technique should be the same for Zarzuela as opera – “they are very close.”
I asked if the new productions were a challenge. Recently, we’ve seen Diego in traditional production (Don Carlos) through to modern takes on production (Attila, Madama Butterfly, this Carmen). Although he has a special joy in traditional productions – “when they were made they were meant to be in that way” but new approaches can work and give an opera new meaning. “It’s totally valid. I really support the idea of bringing something new – new fashion, setting – if it works, it works.” A new opera can be presented differently for various reasons – the Moffat Oxenbould Madama Butterfly production in which we have seen Diego, and the new Graeme Murphy production. One thinks the new production was, in part, deliberately as different as possible from the old Oxenbould production. Tosca, too, is now updated seemingly more often than it is seen in its traditional setting of 1800. Such updates can be insightful – such as the Opera Australia Elijah Moshinsky Rigoletto set in the days of Italian mafia dons rather than autocratic monarchs of the sixteenth century. Such an update is more comprehensible to audiences than the original context – audiences feel (probably correctly) that they know more about mafia politics than they do about sixteenth-century northern Italy. And yet, the human drama (and the exquisite music) remains the same regardless of the setting.
Such decisions can be helped if the director and direction of a new production are explained to the viewer, justifying or contextualising the decisions which have been made and the choice which the audience will see embodied. In Carmen, the titular Gypsy is a free-spirited, powerful woman put into a different age (the original story was set in the 1830s). But she also did some bad, mean things which cannot be escaped. Carmen is not innocent. Don Jose, in Diego’s view, is always trying to do the right thing – thinking about his mother, about Michaela: “Michaela embodies an innocent, pure woman, honesty and true love. And these values and these ideas Don Jose also has, and in the end, he is corrupted by Carmen, seduced by Carmen, abused by Carmen and manipulated by Carmen. And he loses everything – faith, love, place, job – whatever you can mention, he lost it”.
It was wonderful to hear a performer go ‘into bat’ for their character in such a passionate way! In this way, Torre can understand why Don Jose is portrayed doing what he did (though he cannot excuse murder), especially with a Carmen, who blithely continues her free-spirited ways without a thought for the consequences of her actions. Especially when he begs her to run away with him, just the two of them (as she once asked him to), but, unfortunately, she has moved on, and tragedy ensues. “I think Don Jose is more human at the end [of the opera] than Carmen” For Diego, Michaela is a character of high values and supreme bravery “she went to the mountains with fear, but nevertheless she went on – that’s a courageous woman!” Diego also appreciates the “deep understanding of the human psyche” that the composers of the nineteenth century had “how the emotions work in human beings.” He thinks that Puccini mastered emotions more than Verdi but “Verdi was the master of atmosphere, of values and love but, for me, Puccini went deep beyond about human emotions.”
Carmen on Cockatoo Island will bring new people to the opera (as well as a new experience for seasoned operagoers) – the harbour, the setting, the music and the atmosphere (and the singing!) will make for a different experience. To close our interview, I did bring up the weather – to which Diego admonished me “I keep my fingers crossed! I keep my fingers crossed! It is, of course, for me the first time I have ever performed outdoors!”
