Nearly 35 years has passed since then, and the Vienna State Opera has seen many a performance of the Zeffirelli production of “Carmen”, with singers who were certainly no less eminent than the first cast – but none of them have achieved the cult status the first night enjoys in the memories of opera- lovers. “The applause”, according to the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, “threatened to last as long as a full-length opera”, and the legend of Carlos Kleiber’s Vienna “Carmen” was born. The Viennese audience in the opera house hailed the performance as a triumph. The cast was completed by the young Isobel Buchanan who stood in at this production at short notice and included Yuri Mazurok who was later to become a high ranking Verdi baritone. It went off the road, fell several metres, and flipped over. The car was driven by Puccini's chauffeur and was carrying Puccini, his future wife Elvira, and their son Antonio. Plácido Domingo, still the young lyrical tenor, starred as “Don Jose”, and Elena Obraztsova gave a wonderful natural “Carmen”, a far cry from the usual she-devil erotic cliché. On 25 February 1903, Puccini was seriously injured in a car crash during a nighttime journey on the road from Lucca to Torre del Lago. Carlos Kleiber conducted an extraordinary cast. exotic location Verdis Aida (Egypt) Bizets Carmen (Spain) Puccinis. composers of opera such as Bizet, Puccini and Wagner pushed the musical envelope in. Georges Bizet The composer gives the best of himself to the making of a work. In December 1978, the masterly Franco Zefirelli created a colourful and atmospheric imagery while the musical genius of Kleiber drew from the music a rhythmic vitality and subtle passion that never lost its transparency and lightness. your students find useful, as we explore Georges Bizets Carmen. The Zefirelli staging is the only premiere that Kleiber ever conducted. The meticulous conductor only ever conducted a highly selected repertoire and among his very few audio and video recordings are only seven complete operas. He wrote 12 operas in total Le Villi (1884), Edgar (1889), Manon Lescaut (1893), La bohme (1896), Tosca (1900), Madama Butterfly (1904), La fanciulla del West (1910), La rondine (1917), Il trittico (Il tabarro, Suor Angelica, Gianni Schicchi) (1918) and Turandot (1926). For more information, visit presents a sensational filmed document from the musical legacy of Carlos Kleiber: The wonderful staging of “Carmen” by director Franco Zeffirelli in a live recording from the Vienna State Opera in 1978. As Gaitanou writes in the director’s note: “Refusing to follow the rules, is seen as a rebel, but how could she follow them? She is a free-spirited woman who chooses to challenge social norms….She is an independent force in a world that doesn’t allow women to be truly autonomous.” A story of a woman struggling for freedom at a time when so many are fighting for theirs-for the second year in a row, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis meets the moment.Ĭarmen, three hours with a 25-minute intermission, runs May 27–June 25 at the Loretto-Hilton Center (130 Edgar). It’s an interesting time period to harken back to. Gaitanou’s production is set in the 1950s, and Carmen enters the stage on a vintage motorcycle (a retired stagehand retrofit the gas bike with a battery so it would make less noise on stage) and wears midcentury fashions. He listens, briefly, to return home to his dying mother. But if I love you, beware.”īut is she wholly to blame for what follows? When José becomes jealous of Escamillo and Carmen’s love-and when Micaëla shows up pregnant with his child-Carmen tells José to leave. As she sings in her habanera: “If you don’t love me, I love you. But Carmen seduces José, and convinces him to leave his life behind and join her in a smuggling ring-until she meets an attractive bullfighter, Escamillo. When a group of men gather to flirt with women factory workers, Carmen gives a red rose to a soldier, Don José (Adam Smith), who is engaged to a young woman from the village, Micaëla (Yunuet Laguna). Carmen’s titular character is a worker in a cigarette factory in Seville. PUCCINI OPERA CARMEN YEAR UPDATEIt’s not the only update to the classic opera. But instead of portraying the character of Carmen (Sarah Mesko) as a femme fatale, as she so often is, director Rodula Gaitanou’s Carmen is a woman caught between two men, and stuck between freedom and the violence one of those men inflicts upon her. Last night, opening night for the 2022 festival season, the opera theater staged Georges Bizet’s Carmen, one of the most-performed operas in the world since its premiere in Paris in 1875. Available in a range of colours and styles for men, women. Last year, the festival opened with Gianni Schicchi, a comedy by Giacomo Puccini. Shop high-quality unique Carmen Opera T-Shirts designed and sold by independent artists. The Opera Theatre of Saint Louis has a knack for selecting an opening-night production that speaks to the moment-at least it has for the past two years.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |