Georges Bizet’s maybe too ubiquitous operatic masterpiece tells the story of a hapless Spanish soldier torn between his village girlfriend, Micaela, and the free-spirited, rebellious “gypsy” Carmen, culminating in tragedy. It caused a scandal on its first performance in 1875; the audience at Paris’s Opéra Comique was not accustomed to heroines being murdered. Michieletto updates the action to an unspecified point in the late 20th century. It’s not a pretty sight and it’s not supposed to be.
Photo: Marc Brenner
De Tommaso hits the jackpot as the anti-hero Don José, providing all the earthy brawn to the sound that one could wish for. This José is on a doomed quest to escape the control of his terrifyingly traditional mother, a silent figure in black who stalks the scene and who implicitly triumphs when Carmen is killed. If de Tommaso seems a tad wooden at first, it makes the ending all the more believable: he completely snaps, unleashing all that pent-up fury.
Photo: Marc Brenner
Micaela is portrayed as a dysfunctional village frump, but her music remains gorgeous and the magnificent singing of soprano Yaritza Véliz matches her colleagues for power, beauty and persuasion. Lukasz Golinski as the toreador Escamillo was sporadically fine, and full marks to the children’s chorus for feistiness and some super screams.
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Given its stupendous leading couple, though, in the end the evening tipped towards the simply unmissable.
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