Carmen in the park (1968, New York)
: 6/14/68: Carmen (in concert): New York, Metropolitan Opera in Botanical Gardens, Bronx: 6/11/68 except:
- Mercédès Shirley Love
: 6/11/68: Carmen (in concert): New York, Metropolitan Opera in Crocheron Park, Queens: maestro direttore Alain Lombard; [regìa di Jean-Louis Barrault; design by Jacques Dupont; lighting design Jean Rosenthal; choreography Lele de Triana]
- Don José Franco Corelli
- Escamillo Robert Merrill
- Le Dancaïre Gene Boucher
- Le Remendado Charles Anthony
- Zuniga Morley Meredith
- Moralès not performed
- Carmen Rosalind Elias
- Micaëla Jean Fenn
- Frasquita Lilian Sukis
- Mercédès Nancy Williams
<aside> 📜 New Yorker, July 13, 1968:
THE Metropolitan Opera, concerned over the chronic shortage of seats in its handsome new house, has just put on a second season of free opera in the city parks before large and appreciative outdoor audiences. Although the performances — five apiece of "Carmen" and "Faust," two of "Samson et Dalila" — were presented in concert form, they were organized in a commendably grand manner. Participants included stars of the company, a ninety-man orchestra, a chorus of seventy-eight, and a backstage crew of twenty-five, plus sizable contingents of police and Parks Department personnel. The operas were given in the Minnie, the portable steel and-fibre-glass shell that the Parks Department bought for the Philharmonic a couple of years ago and that is currently being used by both the Philharmonic and the Met — a pleasing example of cross-cultural coziness. The cost of this three-week event — something over three hundred and fifty thousand dollars — was shared by the Met, the city, and Pepsi-Cola Frito-Lay, a private sponsor that came into the project at the very last moment. To judge by the size and enthusiasm of the audience that showed up in the Bronx for a "Carmen" in the New York Botanical Garden a week or so ago, it was a sum well worth paying.
Daffodil Hill, a natural amphitheatre at the southern end of the Botanical Garden, is an ideal site for an the outdoor concert. The Minnie, a modernist rectangle with a flat, raked roof, was placed at the lowest point of a gently sloping green meadow, and the eight enormous trailer trucks that carry the shell and its equipment were parked in wagon-train fashion behind it, providing a measure of backstage privacy for the performers. We arrived by bus with the chorus an hour before curtain time and found several thousand people stretched out on the grass in front of the shell eating picnic suppers (one enterprising man was tossing a salad in a green plastic bowl) and keeping watch over children and dogs.
Wandering backstage to the trailer that serves as an office and a dressing room for the soloists, we came upon Charles Riecker, the Met official in charge of outdoor concerts, reminding the control tower at LaGuardia Airport that a performance was imminent. "We'll be in the Botanical Garden from eight-thirty to eleven, and we'd appreciate anything you can do to help us out," Mr. Riecker said. He put down the phone and told us that the tower had promised to keep low-flying planes away from the concert area, provided weather conditions did not deteriorate. "We play unless things get very bad, because a large, complex operation like this is difficult to cancel," Mr. Riecker said, casting a professional glance at the overcast sky. "Last year, we set some kind of record here at Daffodil Hill with a non-stop 'Bohème.' It rained very heavily at the beginning of the performance, but the audience had come prepared with umbrellas and plastic raincoats, and the artists, seeing that the people were going to stay, agreed to go straight through the opera with a two-minute break between Acts II and III. As it turned out, everybody had a ball. Our equipment continued to work despite the flood, and the rain created a tremendous current of sympathy between the cold, wet people out on the grass and the cold, wet bohemians on the stage."
By eight-fifteen, the backstage area of the shell was in the state of seeming chaos that always precedes an opera performance. Chorus and orchestra stood about in clusters, chatting, smoking, and swatting mosquitoes, while the principals warmed up their vocal cords and sipped hot drinks. Franco Corelli — nervous, because he was singing Don José in French rather than in Italian — unbuttoned his shirt and stuffed a folded newspaper across his chest for protection against the wind.
"I record in Paris next week," he told us, "and I must protect the voice."
"Franco was in an automobile accident yesterday," Mrs. Corelli said, handing her husband a container of tea and a flask of Scotch, "and he has three stitches in the back of his head. Look!" She pulled up a lock of Mr. Corelli's hair and showed us a nasty gash.
"I hope the stitches do not come apart when I am singing a high note,' Mr. Corelli said grimly.
"Non più in auto, Franco," said Mr. Riecker, handing his tenor a trouser belt (Mr. Corelli had forgotten his) and a score.
Nearby we found Robert Merrill, relaxed and suntanned, joking with his wife, Marion, and his two children, David and Lizanne.
"Just keep your fingers crossed and hope the wind doesn't blow too hard in my mouth," Mr. Merrill said. "That's the real hazard of outdoor opera. One time in Denver, the wind was so strong that I had to turn around and sing into the mike with my back to the audience." "What about bugs?" Lizanne asked.
"I've swallowed bugs, too," Mr. Merrill said. "I remember a night in Omaha when every insect in town showed up for the concert. Sure enough, a large moth flew into my mouth just as I started the 'Figaro' aria."
A squirrel darted in panic among the ladies of the chorus; a young man in a white dinner jacket helped Rosalind Elias, the Carmen of the evening, across a patch of muddy ground to the steps of the shell and, as the warning chimes sounded, told her cheerfully to break a leg — the old theatrical expression for good luck. Miss Elias, a petite, dark-haired girl in a red evening dress, gave him an impish smile and remarked that she didn't mind getting wet as long as she could be heard.
Mr. Riecker gazed apprehensively at the sky and informed us that the Weather Bureau had just raised the probability of rain to forty per cent.
"In bocca al lupo," Mr. Corelli said. He snapped on a black bow tie and began to look through the score for his entrance.
Out in the dark, as the orchestra crashed into the opening notes of the brilliant Bizet overture, was an audience estimated at thirty five thousand people. "They're a great crowd, and they're here to stay," Mr. Riecker said, returning from a quick check of the outboards. "At Lincoln Center, we wouldn't reach that many people in a week of sold-out houses."
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