Teddy Tahu Rhodes was the toreador Escamillo, substituting in this broadcast for the originally announced Mariusz Kwiecien, who was ill and unable to perform. Barbara Frittoli is a compassionate Micaela, but for all of her seemed naïveté, this Micaela is not to be pushed around by soldiers or smugglers. The production is detailed, and the acting and singing are compelling, especially in Elina Garanca’s Carmen and Roberto Alagna’s Don José. Renée Fleming is the video broadcast host, who conducts brief interviews with the principals during intermissions. Carmen is an opera filled with large ensembles, and the video makes a good compromise between capturing close-ups of the principals and showing enough of the overall stage picture to give a sense of the live production. The video direction by Gary Halvorson brilliantly frames the detailed action, creating views that would be impossible to obtain in the opera house. The updating seems, however, only to affect the costumes, as the settings are timeless: a series of circular arched stone walls in various stages of dilapidation that rotate on turntables, to create (with smaller additional set pieces) the various scenes of the opera: the soldiers’ barracks, the town square, Lillas Pastia’s tavern, the smugglers’ hideout, and, ultimately, the exterior of the Seville bullring, where Carmen and Don José have their final, fatal encounter. The production, designed by Rob Howell, is updated to the time of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. With this production, they have struck gold. As a repertory item brought back season after season, the Met needs a production which will stand the test of time.
It was transmitted live in HD to movie theatres on 16 January 2010. For the 2009/10 season the Met commissioned the distinguished British theatre and film director Richard Eyre to create a new production as his Met debut.
Georges Bizet’s beloved opera Carmen has been performed at the Metropolitan Opera almost a thousand times as of July 2013, making it the company’s third most-performed opera (behind La Bohème and Aida).
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