La Tragédie de Carmen


Music by: Georges Bizet 
Adapted by: Peter Brook 
Written by: Jean-Claude Carrière 
Composed by: Marius Constant 

Almost 100 years after the premiere of Bizet’s Carmen, visionary director Peter Brook transformed the grand opera into a gritty 90- minute theatrical tour-de-force. Stripped down to the story’s four central characters, and including all of Bizet’s beloved melodies, this groundbreaking adaptation packs a surprising punch. 

Content Advisory: This production includes adult content- sexual intimacy, and themes of violence- and may not be suitable for children under the age of 13. 

This production of La Tragédie de Carmen is dedicated to the Chautauqua Opera Guild. As you approach your 50th Anniversary, and Chautauqua Opera Company closes its 94th season we find ourselves in uncertain times. It is my hope that by working together more closely than ever before we can chart a rich and robust course for opera at Chautauqua in the coming years. 


-Steven Osgood

Director’s Notes on The Tragédie de Carmen, or the importance of dissenting voices.

 

When Peter Brook accepted to adapt Bizet’s Carmen in the 80's, he went back to the source and tried to refocus the story to its origin. Prosper Mérimée, a 19th-century French novelist that had traveled to Spain, was fascinated by it. He fell under the spell of Andalusia, a country where many cultures lived, danced, and sang together. He was fascinated by the Moorish influence in Seville and Córdoba. The bullfights felt dangerous and exotic to him. It was intoxicating…  

Around 1939, during the Franco-era, Spain embraced a code of morality for women that restricted careers but honored them as wives and mothers, prohibited divorce, contraception, and abortion, but permitted prostitution. It was a period where there was little respect for life itself. Dissenting voices were confronted and executed. In the name of "goodness", and because he won the Spanish Civil War, Franco marked the outsiders, and justice was served. Silence was planted.

Carmen, the woman, embodies everything we are taught to fear: she lives under her own rules.  Micaëla points out these contradictions in her aria:

She is dangerous… she is beautiful.

Carmen’s freedom seduces her. Most societies will condemn and extract the temptation, while the sinner gets absolved...such is the law. And silence grew.

In Mérimée’s novella, when the narrator first observes Carmen among the Nymphs of the Guadalquiver in Córdoba, he is already judging her, even as he knows he is transgressing:

… I could perceive that she was pretty, young, well made, and that she had very large eyes…

“Go along! Go along! You see quite well that I am a gipsy. Do you wish me to tell you la baji (good-fortune)? Have you ever heard of La Carmencita? I am she.”

I was such infidel at the time – that I did not recoil with horror at finding myself in company with a sorceress. “All right,” I said to myself. “Last week I supped with a bandit – a highway robber; today I am eating ices with a handmaiden of the devil! “ 

“She was of a strange and savage beauty – a face which at first surprised you, but it was one you could never forget. Her eyes especially had an expression at once voluptuous and fierce, which I have never since noticed in any human eyes. “Eye of gypsy, eye of wolf” is a Spanish saying which denotes quick observation. [1] 

If we ask any opera-goer what Carmen is about, everyone will have an idea of who Carmen is before she walks on stage. Endless adjectives will describe her, always with a hint of fascination and fear. That is Carmen’s tragedy- everyone sees who they want to see, and use her at their convenience: as a warning, a sexual object, an idol, or a cautionary tale. Mostly, she scares us, because she lives under her own laws, and we do not forgive her for that. Carmen is as free as we can only dream to be. She makes us feel small, so we will not show mercy. We will silence her.

Before Carmen walks on stage, we have judged her and condemned her. So most likely, we will not see who she is. And just like Don José, we will try to save her. When we can’t morph her, we need to kill her. Carmen can foresee the dilemma and could change her future. But, she remains true to herself: that is her fate. She knows the price to pay, and she faces it. She is the master of her fate and the captain of her soul. Her year was 1845…  Silenced.

Chía Patiño

[1] https://www.google.com/books/edition/Carmen/YuNJAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Merimee+Carmen&printsec=frontcover

Cast:

Carmen – Monique Galvão
Micaëla – Lili Juyeon Yoo
Don José – Louis Tiemann
Escamillo – Tshilidzi Ndou
Lillas Pastia- Brian Jeffers
Zuniga and Garcia- Evan Lazdowski

Supernumeraries- Nathan Bowles, Alexis Peart, Atticus Rego, Nathan Savant, Trevor Scott

CHAUTAUQUA OPERA ORCHESTRA 

Violin I 
Vahn Armstrong 

Violin II   
Jonathan Richards  

Viola   
Chris Fischer 

Cello 
Lars Kirvan 

Bass 
P.J. Cinque 

Flute 
Kathy Levy 

Oboe/English Horn 
Adam Dinitz 

Clarinet 
Dan Spitzer 

Bassoon 
Jeff Robinson 
 
Horn 
Bill Bernatis 
 
Trumpet 
Les Linn 
 
Trombone 
Aidan Chamberlain 
 
Timpani 
Brian Kushmaul 
 
Percussion 
Tom Blanchard, Principal 
Pedro Fernandez 
 
Harp 
Beth Robinson 
 
Piano 
Nathaniel LaNasa 

Creative:

Stage Director: Chía Patiño
Conductor: Steven Osgood 
Set Designer: Brian Ruggaber 
Lighting Designer: Michael Baumgarten 
Sound Designer: Graham Riggle
Costume Supervisor: Cristine Patrick
Wig & Makeup Supervisor: Martha Ruskai
Assistant Stage Director: Kia Smith
Props Director: Wendy Ann
Technical Director: John P. Woodey
Assistant Conductor: Carol Rausch
Coach/Pianist: Emily Jarrell Urbanek, Nathaniel LaNasa
Diction Coach/Supertitles: Allison Voth 

IATSE Crew: 

IA Lead Fly: Eric Oberg 
IA Head Electrician: Juniper Stuart 
IA Assistant Electrician: Nax Sidoni 
IA Audio/Video: Graham Riggle 
IA Head Carpenter: Calan Britz 
IA House: Tony Corona 
IA Head Prop: Zoe Dillinger 
IA Asst. Prop: Shae Posecznick 

Orchestral materials furnished by Boosey & Hawkes 

Supertitles furnished by Allison Voth 

Scenery constructed by Local #266 I.A.T.S.E 

Lighting provided by Advanced Production Group 

Wigs provided by Martha Ruskai