(noticia) Carmen: Under the gypsy's spell

She's back, as feisty, sexy and indomitable as ever. As the curtain rises on a new Royal Opera staging, Jessica Duchen tells how Bizet's heroine sings to us all
Published: 08 December 2006

The librettist's friend didn't mince his words. "Your Carmen is a flop, a disaster! It will never play more than 20 times. The music goes on and on. It never stops. There's not even time to applaud. That's not music! And your play - that's not a play! A man meets a woman. He finds her pretty. That's the first act. He loves her, she loves him. That's the second act. She doesn't love him any more. That's the third act. He kills her. That's the fourth! And you call that a play? It's a crime, do you hear me, a crime!"

The year was 1875. Paris's Opéra-Comique had just staged the world premiere of Carmen by the 36-year-old composer Georges Bizet. The first act - man meets woman - was much applauded. The fourth - he kills her - was received in little more than silence. Three months later, its devastated young composer was dead.

But 131 years after that, Carmen is one of the most popular operas in the repertoire, and tonight the Royal Opera House is unveiling a new production of it, its first since 1991, by the American director Francesca Zambello. Three exciting young stars will be in the spotlight: the Italian mezzo-soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci as the free-spirited Spanish Gypsy Carmen; the German tenor Jonas Kaufmann as Don José who loves and kills her, and the Italian bass-baritone Ildebrando d'Arcangelo as Escamillo, the toreador for whom Carmen deserts José. The ROH's music director Tony Pappano wields the baton. And, with every critical eye turned on it, punters paying highly for their seats and expectations at fever pitch, it's up to Zambello to conjure up a Carmen to remember.

(leer +) [vía the independent]

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