Carmen and The Makropulos case (by Vancouver Opera).

VANCOUVER

VANCOUVER OPERA's CARMEN MUST HAVE BEEN the nadir in the company's recent history. Bernard Uzan's trimmed-down version of the work jettisoned everything from local color to the children's chorus, offering instead a single set of a bull ring with the chorus (whose singing was one of the performance's few positive factors) as tiered spectators throughout the evening.

This two-act version seemed interminably slow and self-conscious, with the stage lighting up only with the presence of Lyne Fortin (a lyrically engaging Micaela), Monique Page (Frasquita) and Norine Burgess (Mercedes). Magali Damonte's Carmen had the virtue of native French nuance with the language, but her otherwise pleasing Cherubino-sized voice conveyed little wit and no passion.

The tall Richard di Renzi stalked stiffly about the stage and sang with a rough approximation of notes and style, while Greer Grimsley managed the strutting Escamillo with more visual than vocal success. The cast was completed by Ted Christopher (Morales), Curtis Sullivan (Le Dancaire), Dan Chamandy (Le Remendado) and James Patterson (Zuniga).

In his debut with the company, conductor John Keenan was most successful in conveying the lyric grace of the incidental music, but he, too, failed to generate anything like drama in this tepid evening.

However, in one of those turnabouts that are often the excitement and salvation of the performing arts, the company definitely put its best foot forward with The Makropulos Case. In the San Francisco Opera production, with large-scale, evocative sets by Leni Bauer-Ecsy and costumes by Michael Stennett, Lotfi Mansouri's surehanded direction deftly balanced the humorous with the eerie, setting forth the complicated tale with sharply defined characters and dramatic clarity.

If there was one star of the evening in the seamless ensemble, it was conductor David Agler, who boldly carried the astonishing score with the assured opera orchestra.

Mary Jane Johnson, fresh from a stint as Emilia Marty at the Metropolitan Opera, sang with firm projection and was said to be a convincing Czech; visually she was glamour personified. If anything could be faulted in her magisterial interpretation, it was that her own warmth of personality seemed just below the surface of what the composer called "the icy one," thus somewhat minimizing the change to transcendental humanity in the final scene.

Robert Brubaker's Albert Gregor was performed exuberantly and sung with unflagging involvement, while there was nothing but praise for Nathalie Morais (Kristina), Martin Houtman (Vitek), John Fanning (Dr. Kolenaty), Christopher Robertson (Prus), Benoit Boutet (Janek) and Gary Rideout as the love-crazed old aristocrat Hauk.