Bizet: Carmen at the Royal Opera | Live Review

Every production of Carmen lives and dies by its leading lady, and Aigul Akhmetshina is certainly key to this production’s success

The reach of Carmen is greater than opera itself – there are many who could hum the Habanera or whistle the Toreador song without ever having set foot in an opera house. Bizet’s rather controversial tale of a fiery gypsy woman who dared to define her own fate and say ‘no’ – that evoked audience-wide pearl-clutching at its Paris premiere in 1875 – is now a cultural phenomenon.

Director Damiano Michieletto has waived the opulence of a romanticised picture-postcard 19th century Seville and transplanted the opera into the 1970s. The first act opens with the chorus not bustling about their day, but instead they are subdued, succumbing to the blistering late afternoon heat. A large suspended light fixture that twists and looms above the stage beams directly down onto the stage – there are no shadows and nowhere to hide. This is a hostile Seville where even the environment is dangerous.

As we encounter Micaëla, Don José, and then Carmen herself, we see the people of Seville trying to survive the world they are in and only just about coming out on top. The setting creates much more recognisable ‘people’, dressed in shorts and overalls, whilst maintaining a disturbing unfamiliarity in its location...

[The full article can be read at www.gramophone.co.uk]