From this standpoint, it could be said that LA Opera is preserving the original art form by elevating convention on it’s most affluent scale. Firstly, this “ Carmen” isn’t tailored for contemporary operaphiles - and that’s okay. There are two perspectives in which Sagi’s production can be viewed: one is from an innovator’s standpoint, and the other from a traditionalist.

Commissioned originally for Teatro Real in Madrid, the production first came to Los Angeles in 2004, and again in 2008. Moreover, this is the fourth time Emilio Sagi’s “ Carmen” has graced the stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Just four years ago, the company opened its 2013-14 season with the exact same production (and, comically, the exact same poster, with Martínez’s face photoshopped over the body of another Carmen). 9, 2017, the LA Opera opened its 2017-18 season with the Bizet masterpiece, with superstar soprano Ana María Martínez in the title role.

For the Danish stage director, this “opera about destiny and obsession” centres on “two people who are treated as outsiders, whose paths cross and who cling to each other in a passionate but unhealthy relationship”.For an opera that’s so widely known and beloved by the public, it makes sense why the Los Angeles Opera would want to play it safe with its recent production of “ Carmen. In collaboration with the stage director Kasper Holten, Director of Opera at the Royal Opera House in London, she has also worked at opera houses in Helsinki and Copenhagen, at the Theater an der Wien and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. She has designed sets for pop stars like Adele, U2, Take That, the Pet Shop Boys and Kanye West.

The French composer‘s most successful opera is staged on the world’s largest, spectacular floating stage of Lake Constance in Bregenz, with a set designed by British artist Es Devlin. Georges Bizet‘s captivating music with its Spanish sounds took the world by storm: Carmen‘s Habanera and Seguidilla, like Escamillo‘s Toreador‘s Song, are known to one and all.

Carmen opera 2017