Georges Bizet died, aged 36, thinking Carmen was a flop. He was barely in his grave when those who had curled their lips at its premiere three months earlier – too immoral, too long, too shapeless – changed their minds, knocked into sense by grief. History has done the rest. A highlight of the opening weekend at the Edinburgh international festival was a production by the Opéra-Comique, Paris, where the work was first staged in March 1875. French authenticity, linguistic fluency and wit were only part of its success. This was the third Carmen I have seen this year: each anticipated with muted excitement (not another Habanera), each, in their different ways, replacing hesitancy with surging adrenaline and musical brilliance. If only Bizet had known. His story is not as terrible as Van Gogh’s but there are parallels.
Travelling light, with a simple set and few props, this version – conducted by Louis Langrée, directed by Andreas Homoki and designed by Paul Zoller – leaps across the centuries, incorporating tropes from the original Paris staging through to a generic present. Crimson and gold drapes in a false proscenium arch are constant, with a few meta-theatre tricks employed (follow spots, house lights, surprised acknowledgment of an audience) but not overplayed. Costumes evolve, from top hats and bustles to wartime drab to jeans and T-shirts. In the final act, the crowd gathers to watch the arrival of the toreador’s mighty entourage – banderilleros! cuadrilla! – on a TV set. Its antenna aerial suggests the wheel of time stopped a couple of pre-woke decades ago. Carmen raises enough issues around male violence. No need to spell it out. (Other operas in the popular canon present far greater problems for directors to negotiate on that front.)
