{"id":3083,"date":"2024-05-29T00:05:47","date_gmt":"2024-05-29T04:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=3083"},"modified":"2025-08-11T01:36:21","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T05:36:21","slug":"the-mets-worst-ever-carmen-and-what-to-do-about-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2024\/05\/the-mets-worst-ever-carmen-and-what-to-do-about-it.html","title":{"rendered":"The Met’s “Worst Ever” Carmen and What To Do About It"},"content":{"rendered":"
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“Les tringles des sistres tintaient” –Cl\u00e9mentine Margaine as Carmen in act two of Bizet’s “Carmen.” (The truck tires rotate.) Photo: Nina Wurtzel \/ Met Opera<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Two veteran opera-goers of my acquaintance reacted identically to the Metropolitan Opera\u2019s new production of Georges Bizet\u2019s Carmen<\/em>. One called it \u201cthe worst thing I\u2019ve seen at the Met in thirty years.\u201d The other declared it the \u201cnadir\u201d of the company\u2019s 141-year history. I had to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A classic description of this opera, by Friedrich Nietzsche, extols it as the apex of \u201cMediterranean\u201d genius, refuting the dark miasma of Germanic art. Nietzsche called it a \u201creturn to nature, health, cheerfulness, youth, virtue!\u201d Its music \u201cliberates the spirit.\u201d It \u201cgives wings to thought.\u201d Bizet\u2019s exoticized Spain is sublimely lucid, streaming with sunlight, hot with perfumed indolence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carrie Cracknell’s Met Carmen <\/em>inflicts black skies, barbed wire, and machine guns. The act one workplace is a guarded facility all of whose female employees wear pink uniforms. The soldiers outside are joined by vagrants (who however sing as if soldiers). The act two gypsy song is danced (sort of) within the confines of the cargo hold of a moving tractor trailer truck. Later in the same act, Carmen\u2019s solo dance of seduction is positioned atop a gasoline pump, a perch so precarious she needs a helping hand from Jose (whom she is defying). The act three set (Bizet\u2019s “wild spot in the mountains”) is the trailer truck overturned, rotating circularly on its side. Dirt and grime are omnipresent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the program book, Cracknell has transplanted Carmen<\/em> to “a contemporary American industrial town.” Bizet’s Seville cigarette factory is now an “arms factory.” The outcome is a “contemporary American setting” where “the issues at stake seem powerfully relevant.” Carmen and her co-workers are oppressed in a man’s world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, this is a revisionist reading reconstruing plot and characters. And yet Carmen<\/em> is an opera, not a play. Whatever one makes of the logic of Cracknell’s strategy, it negates the poetry of the music at every turn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regietheater, now ubiquitous on world opera stages, was largely born in Germany after World War II \u2013 and no wonder. Heilige Kunst seemed, if not discredited, clouded with questions the loudest of which afflicted the operas of Richard Wagner. My own first exposure came at the Bayreuth festival of 1977 \u2013 about which I have written extensively (having been sent by the New<\/em> York Times<\/em>). Encountering Gotz Friedrich\u2019s Tannh\u00e4user<\/em>  (new in 1972), Patrice Chereau\u2019s Ring of the Nibelung<\/em> (new in 1976), and Harry Kupfer\u2019s The Flying Dutchman<\/em> (of which I reviewed the premiere), I encountered a consistency of highly rehearsed operatic acting, wedded to a thoroughness of directorial engagement, wholly new to me. Friedrich\u2019s Tannh\u00e4user<\/em> <\/em> was an anti-fascist polemic. Chereau\u2019s method was to assume nothing. He found himself fascinated by the guile of Mime and Alberich, and disgusted by Wotan\u2019s more complex opportunism; he gave him grasping gestures and a scowling face; he dressed him as Wagner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kupfer, too, knew what he was doing. I was stunned by his conceit that the main action of the opera was hallucinated by the deranged Senta. I found her character fortified \u2014 and also that of Erik, who understood his beloved all too well. The trade-off was a shallower Dutchman, reduced to an idealized figment of imagination. But what most lingered was Kupfer\u2019s ingenious delineation of twin stage-worlds coincident with twin sound-worlds. As I previously wrote<\/a> in this space: \u201c<\/strong>Kupfer\u2019s handing of musical content was an astounding coup. The opera\u2019s riper, more chromatic stretches were linked to the vigorously depicted fantasy world of Senta\u2019s mind; the squarer, more diatonic parts were framed by the dull walls of Daland\u2019s house, which collapsed outward whenever Senta lost touch. In the big Senta-Dutchman duet, where Wagner\u2019s stylistic lapses are particularly obvious, Kupfer achieved the same effect by alternating between Senta\u2019s fantasy of the Dutchman and the stolid real-life suitor (not in Wagner\u2019s libretto) that her father provided. Never before had I encountered an operatic staging in which the director\u2019s musical literacy was as apparent or pertinent.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was only a matter of time before something similar happened at the Met. The breakthrough moment came in 1979 with a re-imagining of The Flying Dutchman<\/em> by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. But the breakthrough was careless and superficial. By staging the opera as if dreamt not by the high-strung, headstrong Senta, but by the ancillary Steersman, Ponnelle gained nothing. And the dreamscape itself resembled a high school auditorium at Halloween. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One may ask \u2013 one should<\/em> ask \u2013 what purposes may be served transporting historically conditioned Germanic Regietheater to the US. I can think of two. The first, as at Bayreuth, is an exercise in taking a known opera and casting a different light upon it. But nowadays the majority of American operagoers are newcomers, or relatively so: this rationale is cancelled. The second is to discover new \u201crelevance.\u201d But, consulting my long and checkered operatic memory, I cannot think of a single production that by resituating time and place likely enhanced the engagement of audiences new to the work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this season, the Met revived the most literal, least revised Wagner staging in memory: the Otto Schenk\/Gunther Schneider Siemssen Tannh\u00e4user<\/em> <\/em> of 1972. I wrote a series of four blogs opened by thousands of readers. The first<\/a><\/strong> read in part: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMany points of conjunction between what the ear hears and the eye sees are unforgettably clinched. The action begins with the erotic Venusberg. Wagner asks for ‘a wide grotto which, as it curves towards the right in the background, seems to be prolonged till the eye loses it in the distance. From an opening in the rocks, through which the daylight filters dimly, a greenish waterfall plunges down the whole height of the grotto, foaming wildly over the rocks; out of the basin that receives the water a brook flows to the further background; it there forms into a lake, in which Naiads are seen bathing, while Sirens recline on its banks.’ Schneider-Siemssen wisely doesn\u2019t attempt all of this \u2013 but he poetically renders enough of it to get the job done. At the climax of the Venusberg orgy, Wagner makes everything suddenly and cataclysmically vanish, to be replaced by ‘a green valley. . . blue sky, bright sun. In the foreground is a shrine to the Virgin. A Shepherd Boy is blowing his pipe and singing.’ A credulous rendering of this transformation, abetted by Wagner\u2019s musical imagination, proves as breathtaking today as half a century ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the opera\u2019s close, Tannh\u00e4user expires alongside Elisabeth\u2019s bier, and young pilgrims arrive with a flowered staff betokening his foregiveness. Nowadays, this ending is variously revised. It is considered toxic or tired. But faithfully conjoined with the reprise of the Pilgrims\u2019 Chorus, it remains overwhelming. . . . <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe arts are today vanishing from the American experience. There is a crisis in cultural memory. How best keep Tannh\u00e4user <\/em>alive? Flooded with neophytes, the Metropolitan Opera audience is very different from audiences just a few decades ago. What I observed at the end of Tannh\u00e4user<\/em> was an ambushed audience thrilled and surprised. The Met is cultivating newcomers with new operas that aren\u2019t very good. A more momentous longterm strategy, it seems to me, would be to present great operas staged in a manner that reinforces \u2013 rather than challenges or critiques or refreshes \u2013 the intended marriage of words and music. For newcomers to Wagner, an updated Tannh\u00e4user <\/em>would almost certainly possess less ‘relevance’ than Schenk\u2019s 46-year-old staging \u2013 if relevance is to be measured in terms of sheer visceral impact.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short: there are lessons to be learned from the new Carmen<\/em>. But it would take a brave artistic initiative, flaunting fashion, to apply them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All this I pondered while enduring acts one and two last Wednesday night. After that, I discovered that Diego Matheuz’s gestures of hand and baton, in the pit, were more eloquent than anything to be seen onstage. In fact, the musical highlight of the performance was Matheuz’s shaping of Micaela\u2019s aria, and the poetic virtuosity of the accompanying French horns. I am certain I would have enjoyed the Micaela and Don Jose \u2013 Ailyn Perez and Michael Fabiano \u2013 under other circumstances. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Metropolitan Opera\u2019s 2023-24 Carmen<\/em> deserves to be remembered, and answered, as a seminal lesson in waste \u2013 and this at a time when the American arts are starving. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To read a sequel blog (“A Way Forward”), click <\/em>here.<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To read a related blog (“Aida” and the future of the Met), click <\/em>here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two veteran opera-goers of my acquaintance reacted identically to the Metropolitan Opera\u2019s new production of Georges Bizet\u2019s Carmen. One called it \u201cthe worst thing I\u2019ve seen at the Met in thirty years.\u201d The other declared it the \u201cnadir\u201d of the company\u2019s 141-year history. I had to go. A classic description of this opera, by Friedrich Nietzsche, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-NJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3083"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3636,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3083\/revisions\/3636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}