Georges Bizet – Carmen (Opéra de Lyon)

Georges Bizet – Carmen (Opéra de Lyon) extract HD

Original was uploaded on 2016-05-02

Georges Bizet: Carmen – Opéra de Lyon, 12.02.2016 [Olivier Py; Stefano Montanari; José Maria Lo Monaco, Nathalie Manfrino, Jonghoon Lee; Giorgio Caoduro]
Work – Composer : Carmen – Georges Bizet
Opera house : Opéra national de Lyon
Who is more alluring than Carmen, the dangerous gypsy heroine recklessly playing with the fate of her victims, and her own? Add the spectacle of tavern life and, above all, Bizet’s unforgettable tunes and piquant orchestration. How to resist such a package?

Georges Bizet was only 35 when he chose Prosper Mérimée’s short novel CARMEN as the source of what was to be his last opera. The earthy realism of the subject, its low-life characters and its violent conclusion were shocking enough to create a scandal which divided public opinion, but it was not long before adherents including Tchaikovsky and Brahms, Wagner and Nietzsche, recognised it as a healthy antidote to operas on mythical or monarchical themes. And seldom can revolution have been clothed in such seductive clothes and melodies.

CARMEN offers the perfect introduction to opera. Although the story was set in and around Seville, its treatment is essentially French. Opéra de Lyon’s award-winning production presents it against the background of a sleazy Parisian night club, Paradis Perdu, wedged between hotel and police station, so that the show recaptures some of the shock which electrified audiences at the Opéra-Comique 140 years ago.

Director Olivier Py is renowned for his theatre work, especially at the Avignon Festival, as well as his spectacular stagings of grand operas on the international scene. Conductor Stefano Montanari leads a gorgeous-looking and sounding cast in the idiomatic surroundings of the Lyon ensemble.

The result is an invigoratingly fresh look at perhaps the most familiar and popular opera ever written. What else might Bizet have achieved, if he had not died on the night of its 33rd performance, exactly three months after its première?

Information

José Maria Lo Monaco – Carmen
Nathalie Manfrino – Micaëla
Jonghoon Lee – Don José
Giorgio Caoduro – Escamillo
Carl Ghazarossian – Remendado
Christophe Gay – Dancaïre
Vincent Pavesi – Zuniga
Elena Galitskaya – Frasquita
Angélique Noldus – Mercédès
Pierre Doyen – Moralès

Music director: Stefano Montanari
Choir director: Alan Woodbridge
Costumes: Pierre-André Weitz
Choir: Choeur et Maîtrise de l’Opéra de Lyon
Choreography: Daniel Izzo
Sets: Pierre-André Weitz
Libretto: Henry Meilhac, Ludovic Halévy
Lighting: Bertrand Killy
Director: Olivier Py
Orchestra: Orchestre de l’Opéra de Lyon