Calixto Bieito found the philosopher's stone for the operatic genre to jump into the 21st century when he devised the staging of Carmen commissioned by the Peralada Festival. It was around 1999 and it was only his second work in opera. He had not yet ignited the audience at the Liceu with his Ballo in maschera (the one in the toilets) nor had he raised Mozart to scandal with Don Giovanni and The Abduction of the Serrall (the latter in Germany). There was a lot to do when this intuitive and emotional creator shook the audience from pro to Peralada with a truthful staging that takes the myth out of its historical context to bring it down to the reality of sexist crime, without romanticism (or not a lot).
The Liceu thought it was "sensational" - remembers Joan Matabosch - but he was not able to put it on stage until 2010 due to the harsh critics and the number of productions of Bieito that he had planned. Finally, this production became his with which he would ring the bell: the most seen Carmen in history which, judging by what was seen last night, in the premiere of this replacement, remains in shape, in a kind of eternal contemporaneity, a mark of Bieito's acting work.
With this in mind, a good number of high school students who had already enjoyed the show - it has been seen in 30 theaters and there are currently seven teams on tour - and other attendees who were willing to leave came to the theater yesterday impact But this time not because of the panties that Carmen takes off: not after having seen a dozen of them fly in L'incoronazione di Poppea.
In any case, looking at it in perspective... there were therefore when in 2010 some ladies in the audience wondered if their eyes had seen it right? "Has he taken off his panties?", she asked each other in the second act, when the mezzo seduces Don José on the hood of the famous scrapped Mercedes. The summary of yesterday's premiere - which was attended by councillors, councilors and the Consul of France, Oliver Ramadour, and the director of the Institut Français de Barcelona, Valérie Nicolas - would be that the theater on the Rambla has cured of fright. To the point that it was not even missed that Clementine Margaine took off her intimate piece (well, Bieito leaves it to the choice of each artist).
It is clear that the fascinating and morally depraved gypsy who describes Mérimée's novel - and on which Bizet based himself at the end of his life - has nothing to do with the one embodied by Margaine, who is markedly rude. Here, Carmen is a woman of her time – late Franco or transitional Spain – in the border environment of Ceuta and Morocco, in which the tavern of Lillas Pastia is a beach bar and there is a parade of the Legion, a bull Osborne and some curritos who deal in tobacco, watches and televisions. And men also have yesterday's (and today's) manners: they know what to do with women who don't get ready.
Alfons Flores signs the scenography inspired by the reality of the Mercedes crossing the border loaded with refrigerators and televisions, and those Spanish flags that the production recovers after they had to be removed from the Teatro Real, in 2017, so that the blood would not reach the laugh at too many patriots.
The great revolution of Calixto that keeps its strength in order is the contrast between the jungly scene of razor and transistor and the refined music of Bizet, filled with mythical arias: "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle", "La fleur que tu m'avais jétée", "Je dis que rien ne m'epouvant"... Josep Pons dominated the Gran Teatre Symphony with Spanish music tunes, and the choir included the Children's Choir - Veus Amics de la union In the seven minutes of final applause, the audience poured themselves into the Guatemalan Adriana González's Micaela, in addition to the main couple. But let the critics judge tenor Michael Spyres (Don José) and Simón Orfila's Escamillo, who made him suffer in the aria "Toreador, en garde!". Very nice detail of the Liceu dedicating all functions to the memory of the co-founder of the Peralada Festival, Luis López Lamadrid.
