Carmen
Carmen is a beautiful and free-spirited gypsy who makes men melt. When the naive Don José falls for her, he falls hard into a dangerous obsession, breaking up with his childhood sweetheart and abandoning the military. But the reckless Carmen cannot be tamed, and she grows weary of Don José once she meets the glamorous toreador, Escamillo. This messy love triangle won’t end well.
Studio Artist Brenna Corner will direct, and Music Director Arthur Fagen will conduct. Mezzo-soprano Varduhi Abrahamyan makes her company and U.S. debut in the title role, and tenor Gianluca Terranova returns to Atlanta in the role of Don José. Baritone Edward Parks is Escamillo, the bullfighter, and Nicole Cabell returns to The Atlanta Opera as the spurned Micaëla.
Performed in French with English supertitles
Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre
Varduhi Abrahamyan is sponsored by Cosmo & Laura Boyd.
Nicole Cabell is sponsored by Triska Drake and G. Kimbrough Taylor.
Gianluca Terranova is sponsored by Rhys & Carolyn Wilson.
Choose a date to buy tickets
Mangia!
All Performances: Pre-show fine dining
$53 for Sat, Tues, Fri dinner
$42.40 for Sun brunch
Opera’s Night Out
Friday, May 4: Young professionals enjoy a pre-show cocktail hour + ticket to the show
$40 for Under 40
Student Rush Tickets
All Performances: Students with ID may purchase discount tickets two hours in advance at the Cobb Energy Centre
$25 – 35 per seat
Final Dress Rehearsal
Thursday, April 26: Teachers with students may attend the final dress rehearsal for FREE
Apply here
Groups
All Performances: Save up to 25%
For groups of 10 or more
Contact: [email protected]
Get the Feeling of the Show
Total time estimate: 3 hours
Synopsis
Composer: Georges Bizet
Librettists: Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy
Based on: Carmen by Prosper Mérimée
Premiere Date: March 3, 1875
Act I — A town square in Seville, Spain
Moralès and his soldiers pass their time reading and playing dice. Micaëla appears, looking for her fiancé, Corporal Don José. She is told that José will arrive with the changing of the guard. Micaëla departs. Lieutenant Zuniga and Don José arrive for the changing of the guard. The midday bell rings, and the women who have been working in the factory come outside for their break. Among them is Carmen, who entrances all — except Don José. Carmen throws a flower at him and returns to the factory.
Micaëla returns with a letter from Don José’s mother. Suddenly, sounds of a fight are heard in the factory. Women burst loudly into the square, and Carmen is accused of wounding her co-worker with a knife. José is ordered to arrest Carmen. Once they are alone, Carmen convinces José to help her escape. Don José unties Carmen and she flees. José is arrested.
Act II — Lillas Pastia’s tavern
At the end of a dance, Zuniga tells Carmen that José has been released after a month in prison. The famous bullfighter Escamillo arrives. He is immediately attracted to Carmen, but she refuses his advances. The smugglers Remendado and Dancaïro enter. They ask Carmen, Frasquita, and Mercédès for their help on a smuggling mission. Carmen refuses, saying again that she is waiting for Don José, her true love.
Don José arrives and Carmen dances for him. When Don José tells Carmen he must return to the barracks, she mocks him and accuses him of not loving her; if he did, he would leave the army and join her in the mountains. Don José tells her he loves her but that he must go. Zuniga bursts in. The two men brawl. Zuniga and Don José are restrained, but now that Don José has attacked his superior officer, he has no choice but to leave the army and join the smugglers.
Act III — A mountain hideaway
The smugglers are on their way to the border with their stolen goods. There is tension between Carmen and Don José. They have an argument and Carmen joins the women, who are using cards to tell their fortunes. For Carmen, the cards foresee only death.
Don José is left behind to guard stolen goods at the camp. Micaëla enters searching for Don José, but she hides when Don José fires his gun at an intruder. It is Escamillo, searching for Carmen. Don José is furious, and they fight. They are interrupted by Carmen and the other smugglers. Escamillo departs, inviting everyone — especially Carmen — to his next bullfight in Seville. Micaëla is discovered and reveals that Don José’s mother is dying. She begs him to return home. Carmen urges him to go. Don José decides he must leave, but he warns Carmen that they will meet again.
Act IV — Outside the bullring in Seville
Carmen escorts Escamillo as an excited crowd cheers the bullfighters. Frasquita and Mercédès warn Carmen that Don José has been seen in the crowd. Don José finds Carmen alone and pleads with her to forget the past and start a new life with him. Carmen tells Don José that everything between them is over. When Don José tries to prevent Carmen from joining her new lover, she loses her temper. She angrily throws down a ring that Don José had given her. Enraged, Don José stabs Carmen as the crowd cheers Escamillo’s victory.
Courtesy of Opera America
Characters & Cast
Carmen
The beautiful and free-spirited gypsy who tempts the hapless Don Jose with uninhibited seduction.
Varduhi Abrahamyan
Praised for her “remarkably agile voice” (stage-door.com), Franco-Armenian mezzo-soprano Varduhi Abrahamyan makes her company and U.S. debut as Carmen.
Don Jose
A soldier of the guard, Don Jose whose obsession with Carmen comes to a violent conclusion.
Gianluca Terranova
Internationally acclaimed tenor Gianluca Terranova, who made his Atlanta debut in La bohème, returns to Atlanta to sing the role of Don José for the first time in his career.
Escamillo
The famous bullfighter who wins Carmen’s heart, before her tragic end.
Edward Parks
Baritone Edward Parks has been hailed by Opera News for his “warm, velvety baritone” and the New York Times for providing “precision, sensitivity and nuance in abundance” and a “robust, earthy voice”.
Micaëla
A shy village girl. She is in love with Don Jose, and tries to steer him away from Carmen.
Nicole Cabell
Soprano Nicole Cabell is one of the most sough-after lyric sopranos today, and won the 2005 BBC Singer of the World Competition. She last appeared at The Atlanta Opera as Juliet in Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet (2016).
Newbie Guide
The Opera Experience
Operas on our mainstage are grand theatrical experiences. You can always expect the unexpected, and for our productions to be presented at the highest quality.
Supertitles
Many operas are in a foreign language. Supertitles are similar to subtitles in a film, except they are projected above the stage. These translations will help you follow what’s happening on stage.
What to Wear
There is no dress code at The Opera and you will see everything from jeans to evening gowns and formal suits. Most people use it as a chance to enjoy dressing up in their own style.
Arriving in Good Time
If you are late, you will be escorted to the nearest late seating area. At intermission ushers will show you to your seat. Plan ahead to arrive with extra time.
Enhance Your Visit
Pre-Performance Talk
Learn about the history of the opera, the composer, and more from artists and opera aficionados. One hour prior to curtain. Free with your ticket!
Familiarizing Yourself with the Story
Because of the foreign languages, classical music, and often complex plots, you will very likely enjoy the performance better if you spend a few minutes familiarizing yourself with the story and characters in advance. Some people even like to listen to the music in advance and others prefer to let it wash over them during the show and perhaps look it up afterwards.
How is an Opera Staged?
Auditions
Actors first audition for roles up to a year in advance, or for more experienced artists, directors also invite them to play a role.
Rehearsals
Most of the rehearsals are held in our rehearsal hall, and not the actual theatre. The conductor begins orchestra rehearsals about a week and half before opening night. They have four rehearsals with the conductor, and then the singers are added into the mix.
Sets & Costumes
The Atlanta Opera Costume Shop alters the costumes to fit our singers. Sometimes they do have to make costumes if there aren’t enough, or if there is nothing that fits, etc. Once the sets are in place, the cast begins rehearsing at the theatre. The Opera production staff works with staff at the theatre to get all of the lighting and technical aspects of the production together.
Sitzprobe & Dress Rehearsal
The orchestra comes together with the singers in a special rehearsal called sitzprobe. There are no costumes during the sitzprobe, this is mainly to hear the voices with the orchestra. There is a piano dress rehearsal, when the singers rehearse in full costume for the first time so they can get used to wearing them. Finally, all of the pieces are put together for two full dress rehearsals leading up to opening night.
Composer
Georges Bizet
(1838 – 1875)
Georges Bizet, original name Alexandre-César-Léopold Bizet (born October 25, 1838, Paris, France—died June 3, 1875, Bougival, near Paris), French composer best remembered for his opera Carmen (1875). His realistic approach influenced the verismo school of opera at the end of the 19th century.
Bizet’s father was a singing teacher and his mother a gifted amateur pianist, and his musical talents declared themselves so early and so unmistakably that he was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire before he had completed his 10th year. There, his teachers included the accomplished composers Charles Gounod and Fromental Halévy, and he quickly won a succession of prizes, culminating in the Prix de Rome, awarded for his cantata Clovis et Clotilde in 1857. This prize carried with it a five-year state pension, two years of which musicians were bound to spend at the French Academy in Rome.
Bizet had already shown a gift for composition far superior to that of a merely precocious boy. His first stage work, the one-act operetta Le Docteur miracle, performed in Paris in 1857, is marked simply by high spirits and an easy mastery of the operetta idiom of the day. His Symphony in C Major, however, written in 1855 but subsequently lost and not discovered and performed until 1935, will bear easy comparison with any of the works written at the same age of 17 by either Mozart or Felix Mendelssohn. Flowing and resourceful counterpoint, orchestral expertise, and a happy blend of the Viennese classical style with French melody give the symphony a high place in Bizet’s output.
Conductor
Arthur Fagen
Arthur Fagen has been the Carl and Sally Gable music director at The Atlanta Opera since 2010, and continues to be in great demand as a conductor of symphony and opera both in Europe and the United States. He is a regular guest at the most prestigious opera houses, concert halls, and music festivals at home and abroad, and his career has been marked by a string of notable appearances including the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Staatsoper Berlin, Munich State Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, and the New York City Opera.
A former assistant of Christoph von Dohnanyi (Frankfurt Opera) and James Levine (Metropolitan Opera), he served as principal conductor in Kassel and Brunswick, as chief conductor of the Flanders Opera of Antwerp and Ghent, as music director of the Queens Symphony Orchestra, and as a member of the conducting staff of the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
Fagen was born in New York and studied with Laszlo Halasz, Max Rudolf (Curtis Institute) and Hans Swarowsky. Fagen has an opera repertoire of more than 75 works and has recorded for Naxos and BMG. The recent Naxos recording of Martinůs works was awarded Editor’s Choice in the March 2010 issue of Gramophone Magazine.
Director
Brenna Corner*
Brenna Corner has worked as a director, singer, choreographer, and fight director across Canada, the United States, and Europe. Last season she made her directorial debut with Vancouver Opera as the director of their new production of Hansel and Gretel. Ms. Corner is also the artistic director of Prince George’s new opera company Fraser Lyric Opera as well as Winnipeg’s indie opera company Manitoba Underground Opera.
Past directing projects include: The Four Note Opera (Yulunda M. Faris Vancouver Opera Young Artist Program), Cendrillon and Alcina (Manitoba Underground Opera), Béatrice et Benedict (Fraser Lyric Opera), Die Lustig Witwe (Vancouver Music Academy), La Clemenza di Tito (Manitoba Underground Opera), The Turn of the Screw and Don Giovanni (Accademia Europea dell’Opera); Summer Opera Workshop 2013 & 2012 (Indiana University).
She is also a certified member of Fight Directors Canada and has choreographed many fights for both opera and theatre. Brenna has a degree in music from The University of Manitoba, and theatre diplomas from Grant MacEwan College and The British American Drama Academy.
Choreographer
Amir Levy
Born and raised in Israel, Amir Levy has received numerous awards and honors from the America-Israeli Cultural Foundation and was declared a Distinguished Artist by the Israeli Ministry of Education. Amir has been a company member with leading dance organizations including the Bat-Dor Dance Company, Ballet Hispanico of New York and he has spent the last twenty seasons with the Metropolitan Opera as both dance captain and as principal dancer. With the Met, Amir has been seen in over 50 productions, including many via the Met HD Live broadcast series seen in movie theaters across the globe. These broadcasts has showcased his work with some of today’s leading directors including Anthony Minghella (Madama Butterfly), Julie Taymor (Die Zauberflöte), Mary Zimmerman (Lucia di Lammermoor), Francesca Zambello (Cyrano), Michael Grandage (Don Giovanni), Des McAnuff (Faust), and Francois Girard (Parsifal). Additionally, Amir has worked closely with some of the world’s leading singers including Placido Domingo, Renée Fleming, Jonas Kaufmann, Peter Mattei, Natalie Dessay, and Anne Netrebko.
Major musical theatre credits include the first national tour of Victor/Victoria and the Hal Prince Evita. Currently Amir is setting the lead dancer’s tracks for the new international touring company of Evita in association with original choreographer Larry Fuller. Also as Associate Choreographer, he has worked with Sara Erde and Richard Eyre on critically-acclaimed productions of Werther (Met Opera), Manon Lescaut (Baden-Baden) and Le Nozze di Figaro (Met Opera Season Opening Night Production 2014). Amir is thrilled to make his Atlanta Opera debut this season.
