The Fellman/Hogsed team included Betty Allison (Alice), Margaret Porter (Meg), Eileen Jennings (Quickly), Siena Forest (Nannetta), Derrek Stark (Fenton), Bradford Thompson (Caius), Max Zander (Bardolf) and Jeremy Gussin (Pistola). Again, collectively and individually, they scored. The production benefited greatly from Robert O’Hearn’s familiar and warmly rustic sets and Patrick Mero’s atmospheric lighting.
“The women are smart and constantly ahead of the men,” said Alice Lind, the assistant director. “The women are very clever in this show, which is where a lot of the humor comes from.” Lind is a current senior and has participated in the Drake Opera since freshman year. She started out in the chorus and now she is the lead mezzo soprano as Dame Quickly.
It's been ten years since IU Opera Theater did Bizet's Spanish tale of passion and tragedy, Carmen, and this Saturday's successful production to a packed house makes it seem much too long. As the curtain went up on the overture and on each act, the Carmen enamored Don Jose was behind the bars of a prison as he is in Mérimée's novel. It's a powerful image in a production that breaths new life into Robert O'Hearn's vintage designs with creative and varied staging by Jeffrey Buchman and masterful lighting effects by Patrick Mero.
