Word: bizet
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Describing the one she could lose it to as "hard to get along with," Witt might be referring to the juicy fact that both Thomas and she will be registering at Calgary under the same assumed name: Carmen. Independently, they selected music from Bizet's opera, and naturally neither would give a thought to changing. As an archetypal character, Carmen has been interpreted in a thousand ways, but this will be the first time one of them will survive...
Director Peter Brook's work in the 1980s includes an 80-minute condensation of Bizet's Carmen and a 9 1/2-hour adaptation of the Hindu epic The Mahabharata. He is probably best remembered for his 1970 A Midsummer Night's Dream, which uncovered weighty conflicts of the sexes and social classes in what had been seen as amiably airy farce. That production, gymnastic and visually abstract, signaled a revolutionary intent from the first glance. This time Brook's method is less obtrusive: though there are no sets to speak of, the costumes are in period and the air is abuzz...
...English National Opera (ENO) unveiled Director Jonathan Miller's production of Puccini's Tosca set during World War II and played in the style of one of Hollywood's gritty, black-and-white melodramas of the period. Earlier this season, the same company presented a Mad Max version of Bizet's Carmen by David Pountney that replaced castanets and mantillas with feral children darting amid junked American automobiles. In Paris, Producer Seth Schneidman staged Strauss's Elektra as a dream-theory psychodrama, freely mixing images of Greek antiquity and 19th century Europe...
Also in the repertory were a fussy Raymonda and Le Palais de Cristal, the original version of a George Balanchine masterpiece, set to Bizet, known in the U.S. as Symphony in C. In these, the company showed off some fine dancing, with the Balanchine memorable for the four ballerinas' poignant Gallic flair. At other times, the dancers seemed distant from the music, preoccupied with steps and counts. They could use some better programs. Nureyev, 48, is an overflowing force, but as long as he insists on performing, he will unbalance his company in the effort to provide for himself...
...filmmakers have long since perfected the art of adapting plays and musicals to their medium, opera on film or videotape is in its infancy, the equivalent of shellac 78s in the age of digital CDs. Except for such movies as Franco Zeffirelli's La Traviata or Francesco Rosi's Bizet's Carmen, most videos are theatrical presentations rather than cinematic creations in their own right. Still, there is much to be said for having the best seat at the Vienna State Opera or Covent Garden right in your living room. A sampling of the current releases...