Carmen

Carmen, a symbol of courage and freedom

Stage director Àlex Ollé on his heroine

The Spanish Carmen is a myth. It is a myth that is still at the topmost of collective imagery - national and international - since Mérimée published his novel and Bizet premiered his opera. This myth has survived theatre, film, dance, music, painting and all art forms. It has survived even the attempts of demystifying the qualities that Carmen seems to embody. 

We could ask ourselves why we are fascinated by Carmen even 175 years after the character was created. Nowadays, the tragedy of Carmen would be on the news as just another case of gender-based violence. What lives on is the drive that motivates her, her desire for freedom, her open relationships with men, equality, her will to choose on her own, to determine her own fate. Carmen is self-possessed. There is no man who can break her will. Her vital impulse is the same one that motivates contemporary women who demand the same thing Carmen died for. Carmen is power, joy, courage, defiance, a symbol of freedom. Seen from this point of view, Carmen is a timeless story which represents some of the rights women have been able to achieve in the span of two centuries.

In Mérimée’s work, Carmen lives in a world of cigar makers, Gypsies, bullfighters, bandits, the Andalucian Bohemian, the circles of flamenco art. In Bizet’s opera, Carmen is portrayed as a tobacco factory worker, who outside of her work, which is her real world, behaves as any flamenco singer does. Whenever she is with Frasquita and Mercedes, among smugglers, in Lilas Pastia’s tavern, even with lieutenant Zuniga, Carmen behaves like an artist. Zuniga himself tells her ‘It is not songs I expect from you’.

That world of song and tavern takes us to the world of entertainment, concerts. Carmen could be a well-known singer who performs in large scale concerts in front of huge audiences but at the same time, in small scale venues for a select audience. The world of entertainment involves travelling, diverse people, proximity to the world of drugs, alcohol, parties, promiscuity. All of these seem to be an appropriate universe for Carmen. This parallelism allows us to approach the staging of Carmen as a current story that today’s audience can follow.

Carmen is a present-day woman. She has life experience and feels comfortable in diverse environments. Even though she is a modern woman, all her experience cannot spare her from falling in love with the wrong man. Don José is a possessive, jealous man who cannot accept ‘no’ as an answer. 

During the process of searching for ideas, there was a character that has been useful to recreate this story. Singer Amy Winehouse is for us the mirror image of Carmen. Amy’s life is the rise and fall of a determined, temperamental young woman who ends up dragged by the pressure inflicted by her immediate surroundings and, just like Carmen, has a tragic ending. For us, Amy is above all an esthetic and visual reference which allows us to identify Carmen with a real-life, widely known, close and easy to understand character so that the audience can feel empathy towards her.

From the conjunction of these ideas, surfaces the scenic concept of a set constructed by tubular structures typical of any rock stage. In our version of Carmen, the main character is a singer of a trendy band. The characters who hover around her belong to the Bohemian of the world of art. Don José is a policeman with whom Carmen plays at the beginning, but ends up having a stormy love story with. Carmen’s environment is made up of musicians, technical crew members, security guards, promoters and fans who follow her. The smugglers are the dealers who tend to run drugs in this environment. Her relationship with bullfighter Escamillo arises maybe because they are both famous, but what binds them above all is the fact that they are reflections of each other. They both like risk, and confront danger face to face. Thus, in the final scene, Carmen confronts Don José just like the bullfighter confronts the bull, however this time, the bullfighter cannot avoid the goring.

It is in this environment of music, fame, money, drugs, alcohol, love, passion, jealousy and freedom that tragedy is forged again in a manner that today’s audience will understand perfectly.