If you know a little about what I do, first of all, and after reading the rest of this article, you know that I’m a passionate person who has enormous, enormous respect for singers and a lot of admiration for their craft. You know that my reviews never contain any negative comments or gratuitous criticism. If there’s something I didn’t like, I don’t talk about it, and that’s it.

The goal of this website is to make people want to go to the opera, not to give gratuitous, nasty reviews to get clicks. You’ll be warned about the rest of the article.

I’m not going to beat around the bush; there are some evenings that are better forgotten. My following review will only concern the first part of the show, since I left shortly after the first intermission.

A terrible production that doesn’t tell much, tonight’s musical choices were truly poor, with missing sections of the libretto, and passages where no one was in harmony, even on stage, in the orchestra. Many of the singers didn’t speak French at all.

Despite an excellent Irène Roberts in the role of Carmen, sensual, sexy, a good actress, who plays the castanets very well, and who plays the comedy very well, the evening was truly mediocre in front of a sold-out crowd.

Life is sometimes unfair when a few days beforehand, for an incredible Andrea Chénier or Sicilian Vespers, the house wasn’t full, which just goes to show that big titles attract crowds. But if people come to discover the opera and see this, I’m not convinced they’ll be instantly won over, whereas a Traviata like yesterday with a small but decent cast, a nice production, and a good orchestra, the person who was with me and who was seeing her first opera, spoke to me about it again this morning.

The production of Carmen was sometimes pitiful, a stage director who, I think, didn’t really know what to do with the budget once the big central platform was set up, or the dance scenes with the Carmen troupe, or the card scene that I can’t even explain and that I’ll remember for a very long time, but not for the good things.

CAST

Carmen
Irene Roberts

Frasquita
Alexandra Oomens

Mercédès
Martina Baroni

Micaëla
Sua Jo

Don José
Oreste Cosimo

Moralès
Geon Kim

Zuniga
Jared Werlein

Escamillo
Byung Gil Kim

Remendado
Kieran Carrel

Dancairo
Artur Garbas

Cover photo : Marcus Lieberenz