Georges Bizet's Carmen

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Image courtesy of the Liceu.

With a plot based on the 1845 novella of the same name by Prosper Mérimée, George Bizet’s Carmen was groundbreaking in its realism. However, at its premiere on March 3, 1875 at the Opéra-Comique it received harsh reviews from critics, who were unaccustomed to seeing the lives of the common folk. Sadly, Bizet would die three months later, never suspecting that his score would become one of the most beloved in the world.

The literary model for the opera, Mérimée's novella, depicts Carmen as a morally depraved person who unscrupulously exploits men for her own ends. Georges Bizet and his librettists, on the other hand, transformed the main character into an immortal persona because of her untamed freedom, marked by fatality: a fascinating cigarette-maker whom men find attractive precisely because she refuses to accept traditional norms. Her dazzling, non-conformist personality is reflected in the habanera, “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle” ("Love Is a Rebellious Bird"), a dance of Afro-American origin; powerful yet tender. 

A production in which Bieito made his operatic debut at the distant 1999 Peralada Festival has become mythical. In this piece, freedom is non-negotiable and absolute and Carmen preserves her deeply Iberian edges and fiery temperament. This rebel is a wholly contemporary creature. Temptress and indulgent, she lives by an urgent desire to live fully. 

It is a story full of misunderstandings: love is confused with desire, an affair with an exclusive relationship, affection with possession and violence with passion. But the highest price in this web of dysfunctional relationships is paid by Carmen, a woman who loves her independence. The heroine challenges Don José at the end of the opera; she lives intensely on a knife edge.  

Clémentine Margaine plays the lead, while Charles Castronovo reveals the wounds and desperate cracks of the soldier Don José. The figure of Micaëla, sung by Adriana González, who did not exist in the literary version, is the counter-figure of Carmen. Who better than Josep Pons, the theatre’s senior conductor and a specialist in French music, to unravel the eroticism of its unforgettable melodies? 

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