Carmen with L’Arlesienne
17–18 March, Regent on Broadway, Palmerston North – then Auckland and Wellington Described as a white-hot start to the season, volatility, vice and highvoltage technique are to the fore as the RNZB presents two landmark 20th-century works never before performed in Aotearoa. Created by French choreographer Roland Petit (1924 to 2011) with music by fellow countryman Georges Bizet (1838 to 1875), L’Arlésienne centres on a young bridegroom captivated by an unseen woman who abandons his bride at a high-summer wedding in Provence. Petit’s ballet version of Bizet’s famous opera Carmen – a woman who lives and loves as she wishes – premiered in London in 1949 and has since become his signature work. rnzb.org.nz