And she burns up whomever she desires.”Įver since its 1875 premiere, Bizet’s opera has shocked, awed, and even aroused audiences in equal measure over time, it has become one of the most popular operas in the repertory, its heroine familiar to everyone.

Carmen, the director explains, “exists in an independent universe where her existence is defined by her desire for men and their desire for her-always on her terms. “But how much freedom is she going to be allowed, considering she’s a woman who is going to live her life as she chooses? Because she’s a Gypsy, she’s consistently unacceptable-unacceptable, indeed, by definition.”Įyre made his Met debut charting the thrilling if doom-laden arc of a Gypsy at her most feral, a woman who embarks on both a quest for liberation and a collision course with destiny (borne out in the thrilling final moments of Bizet’s score). “Carmen would say her character is fate,” Eyre says. But as complex and unforgettable as such real and fictional characters as Iris Murdoch, Hedda Gabler, Miss Adelaide, Violetta Valéry, and even Mary Poppins are, Bizet’s Carmen is something else entirely: a sexual outsider embroiled in a furious face-off with death. Richard Eyre has had no shortage of success directing women in larger-than-life roles, both on stage and on screen. In Richard Eyre’s production of Bizet’s masterpiece, which premiered during the 2009–10 season, Carmen’s life-or-death quest for freedom is driven by sex.

Carmen opera adelaide