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[Herald Economy \u2014 Ko Seung-hee] Brass instruments moved in tight, rhythmic steps like a well-trained charger. A driving melody pushed forward like an engine. Firm, decisive notes sketched a perfectly organized script of life. In 3 short minutes, an unavoidable tragedy\u2014no matter how hard one tries to escape\u2014unfolded. Tremolos on the strings rose like cigarette smoke; timpani strikes hit like a heartbeat. Between those sounds, a human fate arrived.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t the hot streets of Seville or the roar of a bullring. With no set to speak of, the stage became 19th-century Seville the moment conductor Myung-Whun Chung sliced the air with both hands. Principal trumpeter Nam Kwan-mo fired sharp, precise lines, and principal timpanist Lee Won-seok followed with bold, buoyant strikes. The footsteps of fate closed in. A jaunty march swelled, then the tempo suddenly eased. As the strings slipped into an ominous chromatic descent\u2014the fate theme\u2014the bassoon\u2019s dark, sonorous tone settled over the hall. At that moment the audience realized: even before Carmen and Don Jos\u00e9 appear, their destinies are already spiraling toward tragedy.<\/p>\n
Myung-Whun Chung and the KBS Symphony Orchestra presented an opera for the first time in 29 years\u2014their last was Otello in 1997. Although Chung and the orchestra have given countless performances since he became music director laureate, this marked his first concert opera since taking the music director post.<\/p>\n
He proved, plainly, to be an operatic master. Two performances of Carmen made clear why critics call Chung a maestro of the stage. Stripping away direction and visual spectacle, he relied solely on music to thrust the audience into the heart of Spain. His production felt entirely natural.<\/p>\n
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Even with singers in military and gypsy costumes moving amid an orchestra dressed in black, nothing felt incongruous. The music served as both drama and set; its precision made the production more convincing than any visual spectacle.<\/p>\n
Chung did not present Carmen as a seductive femme fatale. Instead, he carefully mapped how her yearning for freedom collides with an immovable wall called fate. The orchestra sometimes cradled the singers gently and at other times exploded in volume and overtones to heighten the drama. That method\u2014designing fate through music\u2014was the core of Chung\u2019s distinct Carmen.<\/p>\n
Mezzo-soprano Alisa Kolosova, singing Carmen, fully embraced Chung\u2019s interpretation. From her first note she changed the room\u2019s temperature. Her Habanera, \u201cLove Is a Rebellious Bird,\u201d was not the familiar song of seduction. She grounded the line in a low chest register and intentionally compressed the rhythm. In subtly delayed phrasing, Kolosova\u2019s Carmen existed as a strong gypsy woman rather than a mere temptress. She sang with the air of someone already in control. Chung repeatedly layered the orchestra to sustain tension between Carmen and the ensemble: string pizzicatos hopped like her steps, and woodwinds shadowed her melody before slipping into unexpected offbeats, sonically shaping Carmen\u2019s unpredictability.<\/p>\n
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Standing beside this dense, commanding Carmen was a tenor of crystalline timbre. Galeano Salas first offered a clear, lyrical tone in the duet with Mica\u00ebla (Kim Sun-young), \u201cTell me about my mother,\u201d then shifted his vocal color as the drama darkened. In Act II\u2019s \u201cFlower Song,\u201d his declaration of obsession acquired the shadow of ruin. Chung reduced the orchestra\u2019s volume to focus on the tenor\u2019s voice and breath. Don Jos\u00e9\u2019s psychological unravelling was carried on the strings\u2019 sharp tremolos and the woodwinds\u2019 anxious lines. At each moment of Jos\u00e9\u2019s emotional rupture, the conductor pushed the orchestra\u2019s dynamics to extremes, turning a man\u2019s downfall into musical theater.<\/p>\n
Bass-baritone Kim Byung-gil, as the toreador Escamillo, dominated Act II\u2019s Toreador Song. His rich low range and imposing timbre\u2014honed on German stages\u2014fully embodied the bullring hero.<\/p>\n
What left the deepest impression throughout the evening was the chorus. The Neue Opern Chorus and the Seongnam City Choir filled Banyeod Hall with resonant reverberation, adding dimensionality to the drama. The CBS Children\u2019s Choir\u2019s bright, clear diction brought fresh air to a story that could otherwise feel unbearably heavy. One of the evening\u2019s finest moments came when Chung smiled broadly at the children\u2019s first phrase. When their passage ended, he rewarded them with a warm round of applause from behind\u2014an instance of musical wit that let laughter coexist with tragedy and blurred the line between stage and reality.<\/p>\n
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The most striking element that night was the KBS Symphony Orchestra\u2019s concentration. The players followed Chung\u2019s fingertips with split-second responsiveness, supporting and propelling the singers from behind while asserting their own presence. The strings filled the spaces left by the brass\u2019s heat with tight-knit tension, and the woodwinds constantly shifted expression to build the drama. The prelude to Act III, in particular, revealed the most delicate sonorities the orchestra can produce under Chung: flute and harp traced a pastoral line, and the strings\u2019 pianissimo became the calm before the storm.<\/p>\n
In Act IV, amid the crowd\u2019s cheers, Chung released the accumulated energy into a vortex of sound as Carmen and Don Jos\u00e9 confronted each other. Timpani thundered, brass cried out, and the strings\u2019 furious tremolos combined into a storm of sound. The chorus\u2019s bullring cheers offered a cruel contrast to the tragic death that followed.<\/p>\n
The evening ran 140 compelling minutes. This Carmen offered the audience a window into the operatic truths the maestro has pursued throughout his career. It also made tangible why La Scala appointed Chung\u2014the first East Asian music director in the house\u2019s history. The company saw in him a deep understanding of opera and a human-centered musical philosophy that could be a key to the theater\u2019s future.<\/p>\n
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Music critic Heo Myung-hyun said, \u201cThe real star of the stage was not Carmen but Myung-Whun Chung. Carmen was excellent, but the night highlighted the tension and energy the orchestra created. Chung fully demonstrated how precisely he can construct drama through music. While his instincts inform his dramatic sense, his methods are meticulous. His conducting did not merely accompany the drama\u2014it controlled it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now the production heads to Tokyo with a new lineup: Myung-Whun Chung will lead the Tokyo Philharmonic alongside select members of La Scala. The July performances are already sold out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well-trained brass instruments dance rhythmically, embodying life\u2019s script and conveying inevitable tragedy in just three minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/cdn-union.tenbizt.com\/contents\/crawler-dev\/thumbnail\/2026\/04\/CP-2023-0083\/thumb-a38a18d8-3b75-430d-b6c5-491d68413c5a.jpg","footnotes":""},"categories":[278101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"yoast_head":"\n