When she appears, it doesn't take long for the authorities to intervene. The history of reception has stylized Georges Bizet's anti-heroine Carmen as a femme fatale with a cassia flower, an exotic male dream with a flowing red dress. Carmen goes against the grain by inciting factory workers, outwitting the police, leading a life outside the confines of the bourgeoisie and not letting any man dictate her life. For the opening of the season and as the first play in the new ANTIPOLIS space stage, the famous opera heroine now returns as an uncomfortable revolutionary.
Prosper Mérimée's novella, on which the opera premiered in 1875, paints a harsh and glorified picture of the criminal demimonde in the mountains and of the deserted officer Don José, who falls in love with the smuggler with the features of an anarchist and ultimately kills her out of jealousy. Georges Bizet adds to the story of the bullfighter Escamillo and the "peasant girl" Micaëla as well as plenty of folkloristic coloring, and the dramatic musical theater events touch on timeless popular songs on the way to the relentless ending on the edge of a mass spectacle. But even Bizet's music does not disguise the rugged core of the story or the fact that Carmen is set exclusively in the world of those who will remain losers despite their modest plundering. The charismatic heroine becomes an explosive symbol of the possibility of a different life, an allegory of the uncontrollable.
Director Florian Lutz tells perhaps the most famous opera in the world as a social drama full of humor in Sebastian Hannak's new space stage, together with the proven directing team of the Kassel Wozzeck, which was recently awarded the German theater prize DER FAUST in the category of staging musical theater.
October 13, 2023 to May 19, 2024
