Carmen is . . .
What can you say about “Carmen?”
Toreador Song? Ole Bizet?
And who is Carmen anyway?
The "Carmen" billboards that have sprung up all over Cincinnati differ somewhat from the whip-cracking image Cincinnati Opera has been using to help draw crowds to the final production of its 2009 Spanish-themed season.
The opera posters portray Carmen as a sweet young thing tenderly cradling a chickadee (the bird is a metaphor for the transitory nature of love, subject of Carmen’s steamy “Habanera”).
In the original 1832 novella by Prosper Merimee, Carmen was a sultry, sociopathic gypsy. Merimee's frankly misogynistic story was adapted by Bizet's librettists Ludovic Halevy and Henri Meilhac into what was intended to be “family entertainment” at France’s Opera Comique in 1875.
Merimee’s dark tale (he added a sociological commentary on gypsies in 1847) was softened in Bizet's opera by the addition of the self-sacrificing Micaela, hometown sweetheart of the Don Jose, who kills Carmen when she jilts him for the bullfighter Escamillo.
It was badly received at its world premiere in Paris.
Cincinnati Opera has picked up both angles in its advertising -- and then some. The marketing whizzes on Elm Street have created, in addition to the storybook-sweet posters and video clips of Romanian mezzo-soprano Ruxandra Dunose bringing the male sex to heel, a hilarious “Carmenbook” page on Facebook and a YouTube download of "Carmen" using Legos.
Like any opera, "Carmen" ultimately succeeds on its music, some of the most memorable ever written and accepted as quintessentially "Spanish" though written by a Frenchman. It is a classic with multiple interpretations. Its female protagonist can be viewed as a product of her culture, a female Don Giovanni and -- not least -- the contemporary emancipated woman, free to seek personal freedom as she chooses, for better or worse, and on a co-equal basis with men.
Dunose will be joined by tenor William Burden as Don Jose, soprano Sandra Lopez as Micaela, and bass-baritone Dwayne Croft as Escamillo. The production, created for Houston Grand Opera, is stage directed by Mark Streshinsky. German conductor Andreas Delfs conducts the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
Tickets are $45-$152 (limited views $26), available by calling (513) 241-2742, online at www.cincinnatiopera.com, or visit the Cincinnati Opera box office in Music Hall.
Tonight’s (July 22) 7:30 curtain will be followed by announcement of the winner of Cincinnati Opera’s new “Opera Idol” contest (see "Idolatry at the Opera" in "News on this site, June 27). The community-wide search for “Cincinnati’s new opera star” was submitted to a final vote online this month that drew over 10,000 responses, the Opera says.
The six finalists are Phillip Jennings, Daniel Moody, Margaret Russo, Quarndra Ryan, Steven Shafer and Jenny Smith. The winner will receive a $3,500 contract with Cincinnati Opera.