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Star power lifts the Royal Opera's Carmen to a thrilling new level

Star power lifts the Royal Opera's Carmen to a thrilling new level

Telegraph10-04-2025
The gloomy, silent figure in her black dress is back, casting her disapproving shadow over her son Don José in Damiano Michieletto's production of Bizet's Carmen. When it was new last year, this show received a fairly cool reception; now revived by Dan Dooner, it has gained in strength and discipline, marshalling the hordes of chorus members and boisterous children (from the Youth Opera Company) with much firmer impact.
Paolo Fantin's nervously revolving sets, based around the alternation of inside and outside a single room, create their own steamy atmosphere of heavy Andalusian sun under Alessandro Carletti's lighting, though the nightclub of Act II is pretty spartan, while the bullring of act four is non-existent, a wall of spotlights instead bearing down on us, heralding death (and the final appearance of the revengeful silent mother in black).
But what everyone has come to see and hear in this revival is the star duo of Carmen and Don José. Returning from the original cast, Aigul Akhmetshina is now the go-to Carmen of our time: always casually magnetic, slightly less stiff than before, insouciantly languorous, totally aware of her devastating charm. It's not a huge voice, but wonderfully shaped: the big popular numbers are winningly projected, but so is the unearthly calm resignation of 'En vain pour éviter les responses' as she sees death in the cards she deals.
New to this production, our very own tenor idol Freddie De Tommaso is a knockout as Don José with his ever-increasing intensity and sheer punch, but it must be said that not every note yet lands quite right, and not all the phrases quite join up. Although the fluttering upward scale to a gentle B flat at the end of 'La fleur que tu m'avais jetée' is beautifully managed, by no means everything is yet on this level of subtlety.
The audience loves it, however, and there seems a shared bafflement that Carmen could be so thoughtlessly flighty as to abandon this commanding José for the indifferent charms of the toreador Escamillo in Łukasz Golinski's somewhat underwhelming performance. The bespectacled, ever-worthy Micaëla (Don José's earnest beloved) blossoms in Yaritza Véliz's aria, delivered with shining purity, while at the other end of the spectrum, the duo of Frasquita (Marianna Hovanisyan) and Mercédes (Jingwen Cai) are brittle and lively extroverts, doing their best to run a nightclub without much custom.
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‘It's a high-wire act. Every choice matters': Danielle de Niese takes on opera's most notorious femme fatale
‘It's a high-wire act. Every choice matters': Danielle de Niese takes on opera's most notorious femme fatale

The Guardian

time13-07-2025

  • The Guardian

‘It's a high-wire act. Every choice matters': Danielle de Niese takes on opera's most notorious femme fatale

Not a flounce, ruffle or rose clenched between teeth is in sight when Danielle de Niese sashays onstage as Carmen – dressed in a boiler suit. The Australian-born lyric soprano's Carmen will not be the Gypsy seductress audiences have come to expect. In Opera Australia's new production, set in present-day Seville, she is a grounded woman ending another long shift in a cigarette factory. She loosens the fastenings around the neck of her uniform – a glimpse of glistening shoulder, an arch of the back and throat. To her female co-workers, she is hot, exhausted and stiff. To the lads waiting and watching, she is something else. 'Through the male gaze, something functional can appear alluring,' De Niese says. 'To the males watching that moment becomes charged.' De Niese, speaking to the Guardian in June shortly after arriving in the country to begin rehearsals for her debut performance in the Bizet opera, says her iteration of Carmen has not emerged out of a desire to 'just do something different for the sake of it'. 'I just want every word, every gesture, to feel believable. That's the only thing that matters.' Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning For years, De Niese's fans had nudged her toward Carmen – a natural fit, they assumed, for a sultry-looking soprano known as much for her theatrical flair as her vocal precision. But until now she had resisted the obvious casting. 'It wasn't about the aria's reputation,' she says of the instantly recognisable Habanera, Carmen's opening solo. 'It was the story in the lyrics that really caught me. I realised I'd never actually listened to them before – not really.' What drew her in was the way Carmen's fate is foretold in her first few lines: Love is a rebellious bird / That no one can tame. 'We hear the Habanera and think, 'Oh here she comes, the femme fatale.' But the text is full of foreboding. It's a warning. That's what I wanted to tell – not just the song, but the story.' In this new take on Carmen, directed by Melbourne Theatre Company's Anne-Louise Sarks, cliches are both acknowledged and upended. In one sequence, the ensemble parades through a surreal Carmen-themed carnival, donning the very stereotypes the opera has long perpetuated – mantillas, castanets, off-the-shoulder peasant blouses. But the Carmen in this production is emotionally complex – proud, spirited and caught in a love that corrodes as much as it consumes. 'I'm really interested in the kind of love that can unravel you,' De Niese says. 'The kind that starts as passion and turns into something toxic – and you don't see it happening until you've lost yourself.' This is the challenge De Niese has set herself: not to reinvent Carmen, but to restore her complexity. 'I don't want her to be a cool enigma,' she says. 'I want her to feel like someone you know. Someone whose choices you understand, even if you don't agree with them.' She points to the recent testimony of singer Cassie Ventura in her case against her ex-boyfriend Sean 'Diddy' Combs as a contemporary example of 'those emotional entanglements, that blurring of control and desire. That's very real. And very now.' To an outsider looking in, De Niese's own life appears less than real, more like a fairytale. Born in Melbourne to Sri Lankan parents, her first taste of fame came early, becoming Young Talent Time Discovery Quest's youngest ever winner at the age of nine in 1988. The family moved to Los Angeles, and at the age of 16, De Niese won an Emmy for her role as a regular guest host of the TV program LA Kids. By then, the child prodigy had already made her operatic debut with the Los Angeles Opera. At 19 she was singing Barbarina in The Marriage of Figaro at the Metropolitan Opera. Seven years later, she wowed audiences as Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare at the prestigious Glyndebourne festival. Marriage to Gus Christie, the third generation of Christies to own and operate Glyndebourne, followed. Her life as lady of the manor at the historic English estate is 'idyllic', she admits, but it took a bit of work initially to be accepted by elitists as something more than an American interloper. She was interrogated about her knowledge of cricket – amusing she concedes, given her Australian and Sri Lankan backgrounds – and pilloried when the last of Glyndebourne's famous dynasty of pugs died and she replaced them with bulldogs and Portuguese waterdogs. Today, she graciously wears the New York Times title of 'opera's coolest soprano', and in 2023 Tatler named her as one of Britain's 25 best dressed. 'People see the highlights and think it was all silver platter,' she says. But her career, she insists, has not been filled with shortcuts: 'I've been the tortoise, not the hare. I've taken risks, yes, but every step, slow. Every choice, deliberate.' That discipline has preserved her voice – and allowed it to evolve. 'Ten years ago, I couldn't have sung Carmen,' she says. 'Now it sits perfectly. My voice has broadened, darkened. It feels like it's grown into its home.' As Carmen, she intends to do just that. Not an archetype, not a cautionary tale – but a woman, vivid and vulnerable, stepping out from the smoke, fully alive. 'Opera is a high-wire act,' she says. 'Every choice matters. But the most important one is this: tell the story like it's happening for the first time. Make it real.' Opera Australia's Carmen runs until 19 September at Sydney Opera House; and from 15-25 November at Regent Theatre, Melbourne

‘It's a high-wire act. Every choice matters': Danielle de Niese takes on opera's most notorious femme fatale
‘It's a high-wire act. Every choice matters': Danielle de Niese takes on opera's most notorious femme fatale

The Guardian

time12-07-2025

  • The Guardian

‘It's a high-wire act. Every choice matters': Danielle de Niese takes on opera's most notorious femme fatale

Not a flounce, ruffle or rose clenched between teeth is in sight when Danielle de Niese sashays onstage as Carmen – dressed in a boiler suit. The Australian-born lyric soprano's Carmen will not be the Gypsy seductress audiences have come to expect. In Opera Australia's new production, set in present-day Seville, she is a grounded woman ending another long shift in a cigarette factory. She loosens the fastenings around the neck of her uniform – a glimpse of glistening shoulder, an arch of the back and throat. To her female co-workers, she is hot, exhausted and stiff. To the lads waiting and watching, she is something else. 'Through the male gaze, something functional can appear alluring,' de Niese says. 'To the males watching that moment becomes charged.' De Niese, speaking to the Guardian in June shortly after arriving in the country to begin rehearsals for her debut performance in the Bizet opera, says her iteration of Carmen has not emerged out of a desire to 'just do something different for the sake of it'. 'I just want every word, every gesture, to feel believable. That's the only thing that matters.' Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning For years, de Niese's fans had nudged her toward Carmen – a natural fit, they assumed, for a sultry-looking soprano known as much for her theatrical flair as her vocal precision. But until now she had resisted the obvious casting. 'It wasn't about the aria's reputation,' she says of the instantly recognisable Habanera, Carmen's opening solo. 'It was the story in the lyrics that really caught me. I realised I'd never actually listened to them before – not really.' What drew her in was the way Carmen's fate is foretold in her first few lines: Love is a rebellious bird / That no one can tame. 'We hear the Habanera and think, 'Oh here she comes, the femme fatale.' But the text is full of foreboding. It's a warning. That's what I wanted to tell – not just the song, but the story.' In this new take on Carmen, directed by Melbourne Theatre Company's Anne-Louise Sarks, cliches are both acknowledged and upended. In one sequence, the ensemble parades through a surreal Carmen-themed carnival, donning the very stereotypes the opera has long perpetuated – mantillas, castanets, off-the-shoulder peasant blouses. But the Carmen in this production is emotionally complex – proud, spirited and caught in a love that corrodes as much as it consumes. 'I'm really interested in the kind of love that can unravel you,' de Niese says. 'The kind that starts as passion and turns into something toxic – and you don't see it happening until you've lost yourself.' This is the challenge de Niese has set herself: not to reinvent Carmen, but to restore her complexity. 'I don't want her to be a cool enigma,' she says. 'I want her to feel like someone you know. Someone whose choices you understand, even if you don't agree with them.' She points to the recent testimony of singer Cassie Ventura in her case against her ex-boyfriend Sean 'Diddy' Combs as a contemporary example of 'those emotional entanglements, that blurring of control and desire. That's very real. And very now.' To an outsider looking in, de Niese's own life appears less than real, more like a fairytale. Born in Melbourne to Sri Lankan parents, her first taste of fame came early, becoming Young Talent Time Discovery Quest's youngest ever winner at the age of nine in 1988. The family moved to Los Angeles, and at the age of 16, de Niese won an Emmy for her role as a regular guest host of the TV program LA Kids. By then, the child prodigy had already made her operatic debut with the Los Angeles Opera. At 19 she was singing Barbarina in The Marriage of Figaro at the Metropolitan Opera. Seven years later, she wowed audiences as Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare at the prestigious Glyndebourne festival. Marriage to Gus Christie, the third generation of Christies to own and operate Glyndebourne, followed. Her life as lady of the manor at the historic English estate is 'idyllic,' she admits, but it took a bit of work initially to be accepted by elitists as something more than an American interloper. She was interrogated about her knowledge of cricket – amusing she concedes, given her Australian and Sri Lankan backgrounds – and pilloried when the last of Glyndebourne's famous dynasty of pugs died and she replaced them with bulldogs and Portuguese waterdogs. Today, she graciously wears the New York Times title of 'opera's coolest soprano', and in 2023 Tatler named her as one of Britain's 25 best dressed. 'People see the highlights and think it was all silver platter,' she says. But her career, she insists, has not been filled with shortcuts: 'I've been the tortoise, not the hare. I've taken risks, yes, but every step, slow. Every choice, deliberate.' That discipline has preserved her voice – and allowed it to evolve. 'Ten years ago, I couldn't have sung Carmen,' she says. 'Now it sits perfectly. My voice has broadened, darkened. It feels like it's grown into its home.' As Carmen, she intends to do just that. Not an archetype, not a cautionary tale – but a woman, vivid and vulnerable, stepping out from the smoke, fully alive. 'Opera is a high-wire act,' she says. 'Every choice matters. But the most important one is this: tell the story like it's happening for the first time. Make it real.' Opera Australia's Carmen runs until 19 September at Sydney Opera House; and from 15-25 November at Regent Theatre, Melbourne

Carmen review - feminist take on opera's notorious femme fatale has swagger and style
Carmen review - feminist take on opera's notorious femme fatale has swagger and style

The Guardian

time11-07-2025

  • The Guardian

Carmen review - feminist take on opera's notorious femme fatale has swagger and style

Opera's most notorious femme fatale makes a helluva entrance: the moment we meet Carmen in Georges Bizet's 1875 opera, we know she's a bad girl headed for a worse end. The downward chromatic slide of her opening aria tells us she's a woman at odds with the system; the swaying habanera rhythm says she's a seductress – a crime punishable by death in the operatic canon. But in Opera Australia's new production, Carmen is not the sultry vixen we know from the past 150 years: the soprano Danielle de Niese arrives dressed in a factory boiler suit, with a swagger usually reserved for opera's men. It is present-day Seville and Carmen has finished her shift; De Niese moves through the crowd of female co-workers and male onlookers with the bravado of someone who has experienced the best and worst of being the centre of attention, and decided to square up rather than shy away. She stretches out the tension of a day on the factory line and hustles for a ciggie. The Habanera aria is usually played tits first, with swaying hips and lots of leg; De Niese's take, both weary and wary, is a signal that things are different this time. It's an early parry in a three-hour duel between the director, Anne-Louise Sarks, and not only Bizet's opera but opera itself – its codes, its norms, its way of punishing and killing women. Sarks, who won acclaim for feminist takes on Medea and A Doll's House, is tasked with bringing Carmen – an opera about a strong-willed and sexually liberated woman who is killed by a jilted and jealous lover – into a post #MeToo era in which sexual violence is still rampant and, on average, one woman is killed every nine days by a current or former partner. It's also an era in which Opera Australia needs to capture new and younger audiences to survive – so Sarks is also tasked with making it a fun night out. Sign up for our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning She has her work cut out for her. Even though the original libretto is fairly sympathetic to Carmen, given the social norms and operatic conventions of its era, the framework is unequivocally patriarchal. Carmen's story is framed by that of her murderous lover Don José: we meet him first, a good guy and honest worker who loves his mother. We watch him succumb, protesting, to Carmen's sexual spell; we follow his descent into despair and depravity, corrupted by her influence. And then there's the music, its tonal harmonies telling us that he is the hero and its chromatic tensions telling us she's the baddie Sarks and her creative team put up a good fight and make smart choices – particularly in the first and final acts, where it most counts. The present-day setting emphasises the urgent reality of the violence at the centre of the story. They costume and choreograph early crowd scenes to emphasise the gender, class and social dimensions of this violence; the way a group of men can transform into an attentive pack in the presence of a female body. Pushing back against the bright, jaunty tone of the music, Sarks threads in hints of the violence from the get-go, when José manhandles a female factory worker. In its middle stretch, the show leans into the spectacle required from opera – and this is where Horwell, coming off the back of Tony and Olivier awards for her work on The Picture of Dorian Gray, comes into her own, deploying flamboyant sequin-sparkled Eurotrash outfits, bright bunches of flowers, jewel-toned string lights, and lashings of Catholic iconography. It's gorgeous, seductive stuff. More gorgeous still is the music, beautifully sung and beautifully played by the orchestra – although De Niese, stepping into the role of Carmen for the first time, was underwhelming on opening night, seeming to sacrifice vocals for a more behaviourally authentic performance. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion Her version of the character – the first of four Carmens presented in this season, each by a different performer – feels unsatisfying, too. While she brilliantly captures Carmen's combative side – as much a toreador, in her own way, as her lover Escamillo – she is less convincing as a seductress and a rebel striving for freedom. You don't get a sense of what she is fighting for, which makes it harder to fight alongside her. De Niese brought it in for the kill in the final act, however, transmitting the heroic courage and conviction of Carmen: a woman who would rather face death than abandon her values. Sarks and her team close their feminist take on Bizet's femicidal fantasy by showing a realistic and prolonged struggle culminating in strangulation; a grimly quotidian act of violence when compared with the ways Carmen is usually dispatched – most commonly in a high-drama stabbing. This production feels caught between the demands of a dramatic spectacle and the desire to show something more raw and ugly – but Bizet's music, the text and the operatic form are powerfully seductive. Opera Australia's Carmen runs until 19 September at Sydney Opera House; and from 15 to 25 November at Regent Theatre, Melbourne

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