Carmen

"Love knows no bounds”, proclaims Carmen and lives accordingly. But how free is she really? Her encounter with Don José will ultimately be the downfall for them both. Georges Bizet’s revolutionary opera premiered in Paris in 1875 – and was a flop. The composer would never know it was to be his greatest success, and one of the most widely played works of opera literature no less. He died shortly after the world premiere, leaving a classic, which with melodies such as the famous Habanera or the passionate “Flower Song”, has lost absolutely none of its fascination.

Director Herbert Föttinger puts the profoundly psychological web of relationships between the legendary characters front and centre in his staging, and exposes the invisible threads that unconsciously bind Carmen, Don José and Escamillo, but also Don José and Micaëla, and in the game of obsessions concatenate them all with one another. Intensive emotional entanglements are contemplated in the theatrical magnifying glass and heightened by Bizet’s highly dramatic music.

CARMEN programme reading sample