Instead of focusing on spectacle, the music is taunt and lean. The "Toreador Song," sung without a chorus, seems more like Escamillio's anthem of defiance than an exotic piece of Spanish culture. The musical staging of the work feels more realistic because it does not deploy a large orchestra. With only fourteen instruments to bring the songs to life, the audience really feels as if it is in a tavern, watching the passions of a real world unfold. The music seems to grow organically from the situations. In many operas, the music seems as if it is being imposed upon the story, or as if the story is highly artificial and only a showcase for the music. This production is about people who sing, for whom music is a part of their lives while they go through a variety of doomed couplings. They sing to unburden their hearts in a...
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