Carmen - 5 out of 5 stars
State Opera South Australia
TICKETS: https://www.stateopera.com.au/productions/2026/carmen
Nearly 150 years after its premiere, Georges Bizet’s Carmen comes with a lot of baggage. Laura Hansford has succeeded in bringing a fresh eye to this classic without feeling the need to reinvent it for a modern audience. Instead, she trusts us to recognise the universal themes of love, jealousy, freedom, sex and violence while setting the opera in 1820s Seville, as Bizet intended. It’s a welcome addition to the growing movement to stage operas in their original settings, rather than teleporting them to the modern era for the sake of audience understanding. Audiences are smarter than we often give them credit for, and the reason these works continue to resonate is that their composers and storytellers were clever enough to distil a story down to its universal truths.
Hansford's interpretation finds plenty of contemporary
relevance in the original setting, particularly through the contrasting ways
Carmen and Don José understand themselves and their place in the world. Carmen,
trapped between the expectations and assumptions of everyone around her,
embraces those that work for her and thoroughly rejects those that don't. Even
if it costs her her life. Don José, by contrast, is consistently in search of
outside validation, pinning his sense of self on his roles in relation to
others: a son, a soldier, an honourable man, a lover and a protector. As each
of these is taken away from him, he loses more and more of himself, driving him
to try to retain the one person he thinks he can control. It's an unfortunately
familiar reaction among men today, particularly when their sense of self is
tied so intricately to their control of others.
Gerard Schneider brings this interpretation of Don José to
life, as everything he believes about himself is slowly stripped away by his
own choices. He never seems to question why he is acting the way he does,
reflecting the all-too-common attitude of “I'm not the problem, it's them who's
making me act this way.” Charlotte Kelso is equally compelling as Carmen. I
share Dane Lam's conviction that she is destined for stardom. Her opening aria
elicited an audible “wow” from the audience member next to me, who was
attending live opera for the first time. My own reaction wasn't verbal, but I
was no less amazed by the power, emotion and self-assuredness she conveyed.
That conviction of character stays with Carmen throughout, wavering only as she
belatedly realises she's trapped with a man who will do everything he can to
maintain control of her life.
Samuel Dale Johnson's Escamillo is gloriously rakish, and
his sublime baritone seduces not only Carmen but the entire audience. Desiree
Frahn, an Adelaide audience favourite for good reason, brings a lyrical
innocence to Micaéla. You're genuinely glad she doesn't find herself caught up
with Don José by the end of the show. Cathy-Di Zhang's Frasquita and Fiona
McArdle's Mercédès are a joyous double act whenever they're on stage. As
Carmen's best friends, they convey a genuine love for her and a desire to protect
her as fellow strong Romani women. Their quintet with Kelso, John Longmuir and
Nicholas Lester, about always needing a woman to ensure the plan actually
works, is genuinely funny even without the surtitles.
Much has been made of the set and costumes being entirely
recycled from past productions, helping to keep costs down amid inflation and
an impressive five original productions being built here in South Australia.
You can never go wrong leaning into our pride in the creative institutions of
this state. More importantly, the sets and costumes are in no way disadvantaged
by being recycled. They give the production the colour, grandeur and scale that
opera demands.
The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, under Dane Lam's baton, is
fantastic as always, with his conducting sensitively supporting Hansford's
vision. The State Opera Chorus is full of South Australian talent and is
another reason for the state to be proud of its ability to put on works of this
scale. A small highlight in Act I is the nun, whose visible reactions to the
events and world of sin around her provide an amusing counterpoint to the
action.
The final moments bring the production's ideas into sharp
focus. As the crowd cheers for Escamillo, Carmen dies, and Bizet's score
captures the indifference of a world that carries on celebrating while a woman
loses her life. Carmen's identity as a Romani woman adds another layer to this,
bringing to mind the way violence against women from minority groups can go
unnoticed or unchallenged today. Rather than offering an easy moral conclusion,
the ending leaves us to decide for ourselves where the responsibility lies.
It's a fitting conclusion to a production that trusts its audience to engage
with the story and draw its own conclusions, rather than being spoon-fed a
moral lesson.
With limited tickets remaining for the final three
performances of State Opera South Australia's Carmen, do your best to see it.
This is classic opera performed and created by fresh and emerging Australian
and South Australian talent. Charlotte Kelso, in particular, gives the kind of
performance that makes you wonder whether you're watching a future Dame Nellie
Melba or Dame Joan Sutherland. With artists like Kelso and Frahn leading the
way, South Australian opera has plenty to be excited about.
- Scott
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