Carmen

Composer: Bizet, Georges

Librettist/Text Author: Halevy, Ludovic

Librettist/Text Author: Meilhac, Henri

Conductor: Heras-Casado, Pablo

Orchestra: Orchestre de Paris

Chorus: Maitrise des Bouches du Rhone

Chorus Master: Coquard, Samuel

Chorus: Ensemble Aedes

Chorus Master: Coquard, Samuel

Carmen: d'Oustrac, Stephanie

Don Jose: Fabiano, Michael

Escamillo: Simpson, Michael Todd

Frasquita: Philiponet, Gabrielle

Le Dancaire: Andrieux, Guillaume

Le Remendado: Vidal, Mathias

Micaela: Dreisig, Elsa

Morales: Doyen, Pierre

Zuniga: Helmer, Christian

Set Designer: Tcherniakov, Dmitri

Costume Designer: Zaytseva, Elena

Lighting Designer: Filshtinsky, Gleb

Stage Director: Tcherniakov, Dmitri

Television Director: Sommer, Andy

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Date of Production: 2017

Venue: Grand Theatre de Provence, Aix-en-Provence

Playing Time: 02:50:00

Catalogue Number: P613

Libretto

Carmen EN

Synopsis

Carmen

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Free she was born and free she will die. This sometime cigar-maker, sometime smuggler with something of the sorceress about her is often in love - as capable of making a deserter of the sergeant Don Jose as she is of wooing the toreador, Escamillo. She is the ally of love - that rebellious bird and gypsy's child she resembles so much. Her first name: Carmen. Around these two syllables Prosper Merimee built a novella that Georges Bizet used to create a character that his opera would turn into a myth: that of a free woman who heeds her desires without worrying about propriety, and who is condemned to end up stabbed to death by a deserter consumed by passion. But a myth is open to an infinite number of possible readings.

Although it has become the most popular opera in the world Carmen - like any universal masterpiece - can still benefit from an innovative approach. Visionary director Dmitri Tcherniakov's take on it promises some strong emotions as, like Merimee, he shows us Carmen through the eyes of Jose. And against the dizzying vortex created by the meticulous direction, under the baton of an unbridled Pablo Heras-Casado, the eternal dance of love-unto-death plays out once more. https://festival-aix.com/en/event/carmen