Scottish Opera Bizet's Carmen Festival Theatre Edinburgh 9th June 2023 Review
Justina Gringytė (Carmen) and Alok Kumar (Don José) in Carmen. Scottish Opera 2023. Photo Credit James Glossop
Scottish Opera Bizet’s Carmen is at the Festival Theatre Edinburgh from Friday 9 to Saturday 17 June, and this production with its new updates plus the performance being in English marks a bold way for the company to celebrate their 60th year.
Taking one of the world’s most well known and most popular operas and changing anything at all is always going to be a bit of a risk for everyone, both for the creatives involved in the production and how the audiences will react to these changes to their much loved Carmen.
In this new production which is set in Spain in the 1970s we get the best of both worlds – an updated narrative and world for Carmen to explore whilst still retaining all of the key features of this story, and of course Bizet’s wonderful score.
For anyone coming to see this production this is not the classic libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, but a new one by translator and librettist Christopher Cowell, but don’t let that deter you from this production as this is perhaps a much needed re-look at the Carmen story and her relationship with the men in her life, and in particular how Don José changed his thoughts on Carmen herself. It is with the narrative that Christopher Cowell has not re-set but reframed everything and we open with Don José being interviewed by the police over the death of Carmen (which he admits to) and this now becomes very much his narrative, and in doing so we return very much to the story framing of the original novella by Prosper Mérimée which Bizet adapted for Carmen.
What makes Carmen such an unusual opera is that Carmen herself is such a non-traditional female lead, and this woman so full of life, love, passion, with a chequered past who was so in control of her own self and her sexuality caused so many problems with critics and audiences when this opera was first performed in 1875. Today Carmen is many different things to many people, and that is perhaps why this opera is so popular, so many people identify with Carmen and her strength of will, and her passion for life.
At its core, this is a story of obsessive and dangerous love, and that chemistry and that tension between Carmen and Don José has to be there on stage or this story loses so much of its power. Thankfully in this production Justina Gringyte is superb as Carmen and has that light comedic touch needed as she teases with every man that she meets. With Alok Kumar as Don José we also get that sense of a man who has become obsessed with his love for Carmen to the point that he has now lost all reason, all perspectives, and in so doing become a very unstable and dangerous person.
With a story told both in dialogue and song this new production gives Don José a chance to somehow attempt to make us understand his motives. Since the initial performance of Carmen, time has gone by and attitudes about violence towards women by men has thankfully changed and now we see Don José’s actions for what they truly are and that is an inexcusable act of extreme violence against a woman who only wanted to leave him for another man – Escamillo (Phillip Rhodes).
The tragic violence of Carmen’s world is also expanded upon in the wider political world that was Spain of the period, a world where any dissent against political and military authority was dealt with both swiftly and harshly.
This production of Carmen is definitely one for 21st century audiences and both this and the classical story of Carmen can exist without one taking anything away from the other. If anything, this new production will make me think a bit differently about some scenes and some characters, see them in a slightly different light the next time I see a production of Carmen.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
Taking one of the world’s most well known and most popular operas and changing anything at all is always going to be a bit of a risk for everyone, both for the creatives involved in the production and how the audiences will react to these changes to their much loved Carmen.
In this new production which is set in Spain in the 1970s we get the best of both worlds – an updated narrative and world for Carmen to explore whilst still retaining all of the key features of this story, and of course Bizet’s wonderful score.
For anyone coming to see this production this is not the classic libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, but a new one by translator and librettist Christopher Cowell, but don’t let that deter you from this production as this is perhaps a much needed re-look at the Carmen story and her relationship with the men in her life, and in particular how Don José changed his thoughts on Carmen herself. It is with the narrative that Christopher Cowell has not re-set but reframed everything and we open with Don José being interviewed by the police over the death of Carmen (which he admits to) and this now becomes very much his narrative, and in doing so we return very much to the story framing of the original novella by Prosper Mérimée which Bizet adapted for Carmen.
What makes Carmen such an unusual opera is that Carmen herself is such a non-traditional female lead, and this woman so full of life, love, passion, with a chequered past who was so in control of her own self and her sexuality caused so many problems with critics and audiences when this opera was first performed in 1875. Today Carmen is many different things to many people, and that is perhaps why this opera is so popular, so many people identify with Carmen and her strength of will, and her passion for life.
At its core, this is a story of obsessive and dangerous love, and that chemistry and that tension between Carmen and Don José has to be there on stage or this story loses so much of its power. Thankfully in this production Justina Gringyte is superb as Carmen and has that light comedic touch needed as she teases with every man that she meets. With Alok Kumar as Don José we also get that sense of a man who has become obsessed with his love for Carmen to the point that he has now lost all reason, all perspectives, and in so doing become a very unstable and dangerous person.
With a story told both in dialogue and song this new production gives Don José a chance to somehow attempt to make us understand his motives. Since the initial performance of Carmen, time has gone by and attitudes about violence towards women by men has thankfully changed and now we see Don José’s actions for what they truly are and that is an inexcusable act of extreme violence against a woman who only wanted to leave him for another man – Escamillo (Phillip Rhodes).
The tragic violence of Carmen’s world is also expanded upon in the wider political world that was Spain of the period, a world where any dissent against political and military authority was dealt with both swiftly and harshly.
This production of Carmen is definitely one for 21st century audiences and both this and the classical story of Carmen can exist without one taking anything away from the other. If anything, this new production will make me think a bit differently about some scenes and some characters, see them in a slightly different light the next time I see a production of Carmen.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com