Aigul Akhmetshina, a feminist and overwhelming Carmen on the stage of the Teatro Real | Culture

Throughout a century and a half on stages around the world, there have been numerous attempts to eradicate the differences of class, race and gender between the two protagonists of the most famous opera of Georges Bizet: between Carmen, the femme fatale gypsy, and José, the honorable soldier who succumbs to her charms. But also between the free and upright woman who ends up murdered by a man lacking moral strength.

The Teatro Real commemorates this anniversary with a revisionist staging by the Italian Damiano Michielettowhich received some boos on Wednesday, December 10. This is a co-production that premiered at Covent Garden in London in April 2024 and will arrive at La Scala in Milan next June.

It is worth remembering that the revisionist tendencies in Carmen They go back, at least, to September 1900, by Gustav Mahler at the Vienna Opera and, more specifically, to the modern incarnation that the soprano Marie Gutheil-Schoder offered by the protagonist. A Carmen who left behind the exotic clichés of seduction to embrace a much more truthful and psychological characterization of the character. That same acting naturalness was shown at the Teatro Real by mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina in her incarnation of the protagonist, with the addition of having a voice of ideal beauty and flow.

The young Russian singer, who had already performed last season in Mary Stuart by Donizetti at the Teatro Real as Elisabettatook over the premiere from its first appearance in the famous Havana. It exhibited admirable homogeneity in all registers, along with a seductive smoky tone that added firmness without sacrificing musicality at any time. It was further recreated with exquisite subtleties in the seguedilla with which she seduces Joseph to obtain his release. And his emotional mettle made a deep impression both in the lament of the letters in the third act and in the opera’s overwhelming final duet.

The soprano Adriana Gonzalez She embodied, like Micaëla, Carmen’s scenic and musical counterpoint. Beyond an unfortunate characterization, her singing expressed the passion of love in the face of the protagonist’s inner strength. The Guatemalan lyricist showed this with delicate nuances and tenderness in her first duet with José, and especially in her aria in the third act, which received the biggest ovation of the evening. Charles Castronovoon the other hand, offered a José affected and lacking in character. The American tenor showed some lyrical flashes, but dragged a vibrato growing and unstable that prevented him from standing out in the famous flower aria, despite safely reaching the high B flat, although he renounced the rise in pianissimo.

The baritone Lucas Meachem He also failed to stand out like Escamillo. The American found himself surpassed in his famous couplets of the second act, lacking projection, charm and color, although later it offered greater solidity in the third act. All the secondary characters were very successful: both the lively Frasquita of Natalia Labourdette like the complacent Mercedes of the mezzo Marie-Claude Chappuis, as well as the dedicated performance of the baritone Lluís Calvet as Dancaïre and the tenor Mikeldi Atxalandabaso as Patched. The four shone in the quintet with Carmen from the second act. For his part, bass David Lagares provided the necessary vocal blackness as Zúñiga, and baritone Toni Marsol opened the opera with solvency as Moralès.

The Main Choir of the Teatro Real deserves a special mention for the intensity of its stage work and for the musical solvency and clear textual articulation in all its interventions. The Little Singers of the ORCAM also stood out, although the Main Orchestra of the Teatro Real did not reach the level of other premieres, with some mistakes and balance and filling problems in an initial prelude started with excessive haste.

The Korean director Eun Sun Kim, current owner of the San Francisco Opera, returned to the pit of the Teatro Real, where she began her career in 2010. Her direction maintained the typically American standard: as competent as it was noisy, although also excessively superficial. Good proof of this were the three interludes, also weighed down by the insistent scenic decision to place several children with signs in front of the curtain.

Before concluding with the problematic staging, it is worth adding a brief comment on the version of Bizet’s score chosen for this production. Although the handheld program mistakenly announced the 1874 version in Paul Prévost’s edition—the same one that René Jacobs directed here in 2024, without the famous habanera—, what was really used was an indigestible rehash of the Choudens edition, with cuts and minimal spoken dialogues, but also with some recitative passage composed by Guiraud. It is regrettable not to have had the excellent Prévost edition of Bärenreitera true model in the presentation of the initial versions of the opera until its premiere in 1875.

The stage proposal by Damiano Michieletto, delegated in Madrid by Eleonora Gravagnola, opts for a feminist reading of Bizet’s opera and against sexist violence; reasonable guidance when no absurdities like those of Leo Muscato in Florence. The two protagonists take their differences to the extreme in the costumes designed by Carla Teti, although Micaëla’s humility is reduced to a caricature. Much more effective is the characterization of the male characters within a veristic aesthetic located in the 1970s, in a southern town with a tropical air.

Paolo Fantin once again opts for a realistic and circular scenography. The dizzying result is more uncomfortable than it contributes in its effort to show every nook and cranny of the police station, of the brothel that replaces the Lillas Pastia Tavern or of that smugglers’ environment that evokes Calixto Bieito’s famous production. For the rest, Alessandro Carletti’s lighting creates atmosphere, but hinders dramatic moments such as the final murder.

The most serious problems emerge, just as happened con Madama Butterfly in 2024in the direction of actors. There is no chemistry between the singers and the dramatic evolution is conspicuous by its absence in the protagonists, no matter how much the time elapsed between acts is indicated. The most striking decision is to make José’s mother appear as a ghost, even though she is alive in the first three acts. It is already seen in the destiny passage of the prelude and in the protagonist’s most difficult moments. At the press conference, Michieletto explained by videoconference that he was the true reverse of Carmen and that her widow’s outfit was inspired by Bernarda Alba’s house from Lorca. However, theatrically it becomes a dispensable effect.