The Live Cinema Series continues with a screening of the current production of Carmen by The Royal Opera on Wednesday, April 11 at 6:00 p.m, and again on Sunday, April 15 at 2:00 p.m. This production is filmed live in London and rebroadcast internationally to select screens.
Carmen is the best-known work by French composer Georges Bizet, and one of the most famous operas in the entire art form – numbers such as the “Habanera” and the “Toreador Song” have permeated the popular consciousness as little else has. The opera’s heady combination of passion, sensuality and violence initially proved too much for the stage, and it was a critical failure on its 1875 premiere. Bizet died shortly after, and never learned of the spectacular success his Carmen would achieve: the opera has been performed more than five hundred times at Covent Garden alone.
Carmen is set in southern Spain and tells the story of the downfall of Don José, a naïve soldier who is seduced by the wiles of the fiery gypsy Carmen. José abandons his childhood sweetheart and deserts from his military duties, yet loses Carmen’s love to the glamorous matador Escamillo, after which José kills her in a jealous rage.
This ever-popular opera is given a fresh point of view in Barrie Kosky’s highly physical production, originally created for Frankfurt Opera. The Australian director is one of the world’s most sought-after opera directors, whose Royal Opera debut with Shostakovich’s The Nose in 2016 was greeted with delight. For Carmen he has devised a far-from-traditional version, incorporating music written by Bizet for the score but not usually heard, and giving a new voice to the opera’s endlessly fascinating central character.
For this production, Jakub Hrůša conducts the following cast:
MORALÈS – Gyula Nagy
MICAËLA – Kristina Mkhitaryan
DON JOSÉ – Francesco Meli
ZUNIGA – David Soar
CARMEN – Anna Goryachova
FRASQUITA – Jacquelyn Stucker
MERCÉDÈS – Aigul Akhmetshina
ESCAMILLO – Kostas Smoriginas
DANCAÏRO – Pierre Doyen
REMENDADO – Jean-Paul Fouchécourt
VOICE OF CARMEN – Claude de Demo
This screening runs approximately 3 hours 50 minutes including one intermission and an onscreen introduction.
NOTE: Carmen is sung in French with English surtitles.
Reserved seating tickets ($15 Adults, $10 Students/Youth) are available online or by calling the box office at 509-529-6500. For group ticket sales, please call 509-876-1662. Outside food and beverages are not allowed. Beer, wine, popcorn, and snacks will be available for purchase, and may be taken into the theater.
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The 2018 Live Cinema Series is sponsored by Shakespeare Walla Walla, a local 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that aims to make Shakespeare and theater approachable and entertaining to students in eastern Washington and Oregon.
