Carmen

After the rediscovery of the first version of Gounod’s Faust in 2018 and the original version of Offenbach’s La Vie parisienne in 2021, the Palazzetto Bru Zane and its partners present a revival – this time visual – of another great French Romantic opera: Bizet’s Carmen, with the costumes, sets and staging of the 1875 premiere.

Bizet’s Carmen is one of the world’s most frequently performed operas and it includes some of the bestknown arias of all time. Over the years it has gradually become an international reference, giving rise to a wide variety of interpretations. A certain mythology has also grown up around the work, aimed at justifying it being the only opera of its generation to achieve such fame: its complete failure at the première and Bizet’s sudden death as a misunderstood genius belong more to the realm of folklore than to historical reality. There are not many different versions of the score, which could pose a problem, but producers of Carmen are nevertheless faced with the dilemma of choosing between two alternatives – with spoken dialogue or with the recitatives provided by Ernest Guiraud – and often the work’s integrity is threatened by cuts. Furthermore, the most radical mises-en-scène have distorted the original content to the point of misinterpretation.

Everything has been done with Carmen except what is possibly the most conceptual approach, unexpected today, at the time of the 150^th anniversary of its creation: the restoration of the original mise-en-scène, costumes and sets, with the aim quite simply of discovering what Carmen was like in its early days. This project represents a visual – even more than musical – experience, and to accompany it Bru Zane Label has produced its very first offering in video-book format.

Available on DVD, Blu-ray or online, this recording of Carmen is accompanied by a book featuring introductory texts and historical resources, as well as photographs of Romain Gilbert’s staging, Antoine Fontaine’s handcrafted sets, and the colourful costumes designed by Christian Lacroix.

Filmed in September 2023 at the Théâtre des Arts in Rouen by Camera lucida and France Télévisions.
Éditions Choudens (revised by the Palazzetto Bru Zane)
Historical advice: Palazzetto Bru Zane scientific research team

Presentation texts by Alexandre Dratwicki, Antoine Fontaine, Romain Gilbert, Étienne Jardin and Christian Lacroix
Color photographs of the historical staging by Romain Gilbert