Vienna mounts woke Carmen
OperaA hostile reception was expected for Lotte de Beer’s new Carmen at the Volksoper, where the audience is treated to a frumpish heroine dressed head-to-toe in black and having little by way of the familiar character.
The French-born mezzo-soprano Katia Ledoux is a member of the Volksoper ensemble.
Stefan Ender wrote in Der Standard: ‘Ledoux’s Carmen seems somehow… woke. You could also imagine her doing gender studies with a latte macchiato with oat milk, when she’s not busy loving and suffering at the Volksoper as visual material in the director’s world of interpretation.’
photo: Barbara Pálffy, Vienna Volksoper
“Frumpish”… really, Norman?
It’s not woke enough. It should be a man dressed in women’s clothes in the role of Carmen… or at least someone who is gender curious!
We’ve already had a female Don(na) José here in the States.
They’ve just done that in Sweden at Spira.
Is anyone truly surprised by Lotte de Beer? She epitomises the concept of an “Emperor’s new clothes” director. Honestly, I’d argue she single-handedly staged what most would agree was the worst production of Aida at the Paris Opera! And to think, they’d assembled some of the world’s top singers, only for them to be subjected to that utter nonsense. I can only assume they didn’t walk out because, well, it was during Covid, and they clearly needed the money! Truly dreadful!
If Vienna was pissed off by Schnittke’s creepy arrangement of Silent Night they would be pissed off by anything
https://youtu.be/oJhs0dS61tI?si=CMtxfJx3QlkTVUz3&t=126
The production can’t possibly be as trite and boring as the clichés trotted out in Ender’s review.
Norman Lebrecht is hereby awarded the title of Knight Commander of the Euphemistic Understatement.
So this Carmen is woke because she’s not showing cleavage?
Putting Carmen in a dress during the third act has never made sense because she is working as a smuggler under the cover of night.
In the first act, we do have historic photos and engravings of what tobacco factories looked like; while women may have worn dresses, they covered their whole bodies and were loose fitting.
It’s only in the last act that Carmen should be dressed up.
Carmen is supposed to be a sexy and alluring trollop who rolls cigarettes in a factory, not a militant covered lesbian. The producer obviously doesn’t know her opera, or ignored the entire libretto in this production.
Or, more likely knew she was paid to titillate a minority in the audience and antagonize conventional opera-goers. To eschew any semblance of what composers might recognize as their own work has been the mission everywhere, because if we accept what the composer wrote, we invite deathly stasis, mindless, complacent conservatism and the end of opera as “theater.” It’s all or nothing these days, and I contend only a tiny minority of the potential audience wants this. I think many singers are alienated too, but they want the work and the stage exposure.
Uh oh. Basement dweller alert. I am sure the world would love to see your clichéd stereotypes enacted on stage.
The opera is far more nuanced than that.
The uncut version has dialogue that provides a lot of backstory for Don Jose. He’s essentially a loser and mama’s boy who is easily seduced and has unrealistic expectations of women.
Carmen is not necessarily supposed to be the most beautiful woman; her free spirit and nonconformity with the norms of the era is what makes her alluring to men.
Reducing Carmen to being “sexy” completely misses the rich characters Bizet created.
Agreed. It is Carmen’s wildness and un-bourgeois attitude that draws-in Don José. And which caused the première turn into a flop because of being experienced as unsettling and immoral.
Thanks for the warning – I’ll either buy a cheap seat with very limited view for the nozze or prefer the recital (Lukas Sternath) in the Musikverein on the same evening in June – hopefully “Die Fledermaus” isn’t destroyed as well in the future at the VO!
Oh jeez, now this has also entered the operatic world…
Do these people have to destroy everything with their “wokeness”? Having no clue about the words genuine meaning btw…
Maybe it’s not the color of her outfit that they’re really bothered about.
Precisely. Don’t know why these people don’t just stay at home listening to their recordings.
Go figure. Volksoper’s new GM is a woke feminist.
We have to conquer the world, so what is wrong by starting in these opera houses where we have already such main roles?
Sally
Can’t wait to see your take on the nerves Udon Carlos at the Staatsoper….
This is what you do when you have nothing genuinely creative to offer.
A similar thing happened at the Dutch National Opera’s otherwise fine Trittico last May. When the Principessa (well-sung by Raehann Bryce-Davis) walked in to meet Angelica, she was dressed like she was going to the disco, all in leather, swinging her hips and flinging herself around, as if she wandered in from the latest woke Carmen or Porgy production. The Principessa, who is supposed to be dignified, cold, and formidable, must have been going out for drinks after the show.
No problem, I smartly chose La Nozze di Figaro at the Staatsoper this week! 🙂
If you don’t have anything meaningful to say, just call it “woke”. Such laziness by the critic.
Reading the review, he seems upset that the director commented on…bourgeois class relations. Hardly a new 21st century invention in opera stagings, or a new concept in cultural critique. I mean, Marx was writing when Carmen was premiered.
Oh my god grow up you whiny snowflakes. This article, if you could even call it that, has the most uncomfortably racist undertones I’ve seen in a while. What does “woke” even mean? Shut up and worry about actual issues. Weirdos.
Oh, please. Just look up the Met’s picture of the Horne/McCracken production in the 70’s. McCracken looks like a fat sweaty golem in espadrilles, and Horne, all in white, looks like Miss Havisham has given up waiting and snarfed her entire wedding cake in one go. And yet it was a famous production.
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/marilyn-horne-as-carmen-and-james-mccracken-as-don-jos%C3%A9-at-news-photo/729069759
Or, he from a low-budget, regional [insert least favorite USA state here] production of Cats, and she straight from a failed audition for Lucia.
Yeah but at least her wedding dress is the right shade and cut for Norm (Yuja wouldn’t pass the test)
It always amazes me how these people get those jobs, Lotte de Beer is a tragedy and an insult to Marcel Prawy’s legacy…
Agree and disagree with the criticisms. Ms Lejoux has a superb voice and sang the role magnificently. I feel almost sorry for her (and almost “guilty”) saying that I was less than moved by her acting, and was confused as to why she was wearing a black sack as attire, which did nothing to compensate for her less-than-alluring profile… I was under the impression that Carmen is supposed to be very attractive and have major sexual allure, to go with her life philosophy. If this was a politically woke-motivated production, I guess they made their point, but all this does not take away from Ms Lejoux excellent singing performance and the overall fabulous staging and production – which my wife and I greatly enjoyed!