The Los Angeles Opera should be thankful to Georges Bizet for writing such compelling music. Without it, their recent production of “Carmen” would have been horrific. To make matters worse, their mistakes were neither compelling nor thought-provoking; they reeked of timidity, which has no place in the performing arts. At least the music was nice!
“Carmen” is not a story suited for interpretive restraint. Over three-and-a-half hours, we watch the titular “gitana” attack a coworker, escape the resulting imprisonment, be condemned to death by prophecy, fall for a bullfighter and eventually die by a jilted ex-lover’s hand. This drama unfolds against music that was initially condemned for its immorality by all but Tchaikovsky, who deemed it a “masterpiece in every sense of the word.” In the intervening 151 years since its premiere, “Carmen” has become legendary for its instantly memorable melodies: Even if you don’t know them by name, I am sure you recognize the prelude, habanera and bullfighter’s song.
Many opera companies have taken big interpretive swings with “Carmen.” New York’s Metropolitan Opera placed the opera not in 19th-century Seville, but along the contemporary Mexico-United States border, and Milan’s Teatro alla Scala set “Carmen” in a minimalist depiction of the American frontier. I am not of entirely positive opinions about either of these artistic choices: They lose a lot, from my admittedly Hispano-philic point of view, by extricating Carmen and her retinue from her original setting, but at least those opera companies made clear decisions and stuck to them. Even though they cannot capture that particularly 19th-century French obsession with an exotic Spanish “gitana” culture, they do have things to say about our contemporary relationship with the American West and our southern border. Even as they remove substance from the original opera, they add it in their own interpretations. The same cannot be said of the LA Opera.
As the curtain rose on Act I of “Carmen,” I was delighted to see an apparently traditional set design. However, I was quickly disabused of such an optimistic notion, and for the rest of the opera, I was incessantly confronted by questions consistently posed — but never answered — by LA Opera’s production.
What might we learn from setting “Carmen” in mid-century Spain, with brief historical clips of Francisco Franco in the background — but only ever in the final act, like a footnote? What significance do televisions with football matches bear in a story of doomed love? What do we gain from seeing Don José, Carmen’s eventual murderer, whip himself during Easter processions? Why might some dialogue be recorded in Spanish, some recorded in French and some simply spoken in French as the libretto — the script — designates? Why would Rihab Chaieb, who played Carmen, boast about playing the castanets herself in an interview, as quoted in the program, when she did not do so during the performance?
The LA Opera was thoroughly uninterested in answering these questions, despite raising them repeatedly to the bewilderment of the audience. Throughout the opera, I noticed some discrepancy between this production and a standard interpretation — a television in the background, pre-recorded dialogue, etc. — and wondered why LA Opera chose to do things in such a manner. I would expect that, if the production had any sense of a decent overarching artistic vision, these questions would have naturally been answered.
But if there were any such reasons, I remain entirely ignorant as to what they are. If LA Opera had some underlying interpretative message that motivated each of these choices, I would have loved to find out what it was — but they were either too incompetent or too meek to make that interpretation clear.
It is, of course, entirely normal for an artistic product to leave some questions. In even the most traditional, by-the-book productions of “Carmen,” we are left to dwell on the nature of destiny, the significance of the few melodies by Bizet that do not correspond to any vocal line and whether the French really do pronounce “José” like that. Those, however, are at least more meaningful questions than simply asking why a corpse seems to be walking towards its grave, or what a soccer match is doing in the background of a poignant scene about a mother’s deathbed forgiveness for her son.
Were these aforementioned occurrences simply mistakes? Possibly some were. But that excuse cannot extend to all LA Opera’s choices, some of which were necessarily intentional. There must have been some reason why, during the final act’s confrontation between Don José and Carmen, they projected historical reels of Francisco Franco in a military parade on the back of the stage. There must have been some reason why, in the emotionally wrenching scene in which Don José’s mother exhorts him to marry Micaëla, we see their neighbors watching a football match. There must have been some reason why a helicopter enters briefly to provide the bandits an escape from the authorities.
But if there were any such reasons, I remain entirely ignorant as to what they are. If LA Opera had some underlying interpretative message that motivated each of these choices, I would have loved to find out what it was — but they were either too incompetent or too meek to make that interpretation clear.
I shall not be unduly uncharitable: LA Opera might have had a concrete rationale for all of these artistic decisions. Because I did not understand any of them, I am left with two possible conclusions. Either I wholly lack the perspicacity to understand the intricacies of their interpretation, or they did not commit fully to that interpretation. Thus, the production was left with a few fragments hinting at, but never clearly establishing, a performance that could have existed. I would very much like it to be the case that the former were true; I could then simply allay my confusion by asking others around me, and not be left with the impression that the LA Opera is incapable of fulfilling its artistic goals.
Unfortunately, the only fact I can be sure of is that they were not bold enough to clearly justify their choices.
Akshay Seetharam HM ’27 is an advocate for ignoring all music composed before 1820 and after 1870. Reading his column will probably give you an unfair advantage in solving his crosswords, which are now the longest-running way to waste your time in TSL.