Holten deals Carmen a spectacular hand
Opera Carmen Bregenz Festival, Austria
The lake stage in Bregenz is a venue for theatrical spectaculars, and Kasper Holten’s production of Carmen on Es Devlin’s extraordinary set was a knockout. The concept emerged when Holten met Devlin after her visit to Seville, and they tossed cards in the air to represent the fate Carmen feels she cannot escape – that has been recreated on a massive scale here for the audience of 7,000 at the lakeside amphitheatre.
The cards are each 36 sq yd in area, flying between hands 100ft apart, one holding a cigarette 20ft long. In Act III, as Elena Tsallagova’s Micaëla finds the smugglers’ hideout, singing with powerful emotion of her beloved Don José and the evil wiles of the woman who has captured him, she stands high on one of the hands. Then, amazingly, she climbs above the flying cards that reach 80ft above the lake, swinging from one to another, a daring and terrifying mountaineering feat.
From such dizzying heights, Carmen’s death at the end reaches the depths as Don José holds her under the water to drown. The lake itself is part of the production, the front of the stage lowering to create the impression of water rising, and the Act II dance at Lillas Pastia’s gradually becomes a wild water dance. It’s terrific fun. Zuniga is shot at the end of that act, dumped into one of the smugglers’ boats, to be later tipped into the lake, and Carmen makes her escape at the end of Act I by leaping into the water and swimming off.
On the rain-drenched opening night, Carmen herself was dramatically performed by Gaëlle Arquez, with Daniel Johansson a strongly passionate Don José, under sensitive and energetic musical direction by Paolo Carignani. But it was the staging that carried it, with Anja Vang Kragh’s colourful costumes, Bruno Poet’s excellent lighting and Luke Halls’s video projections that allowed the cards to show varying faces – a queen of hearts for Carmen and a knave of clubs for Don Jose.
If opera is theatre, and it certainly should be, then this big-audience production serves it brilliantly. Rain was the only problem, but as I entered the auditorium at the start of a thunderstorm a charming young English woman suggested that I go back and buy a waterproof covering. I did. That woman turned out to be Es Devlin. Thank you.
Amazingly, she climbs high above the flying cards, swinging from one to another, a daring feat