ConcertPulse
Bizet: Carmen
Elbphilharmonie, Großer Saal (Hamburg)
Free and untamed is how the heroine of Bizet’s world-famous opera »Carmen« wants to live her life – and she would rather perish than submit to a man’s will. And at the end Carmen does indeed die to the sounds of what may be the most passionate opera music ever written. After countless highlights in the Baroque repertoire, masterful Mozart interpretations and excursions into the world of German Romanticism, conductor René Jacobs and the B’Rock Orchestra venture into the heated bullfighting atmosphere of this piece, which premiered in 1875 2 in a very special version. »Carmen« is performed in a version that Bizet originally intended before the director of the Opéra comique urged him to make far-reaching changes. The original manuscripts of the original version have now been analysed and used as a basis to reconstruct a »Carmen« that has never been heard before. Gaëlle Arquez as an experienced Carmen and Sabine Devieilhe as her rival Micaëla sparkle as the two female leads, creating an explosive, passionate mixture together with the baritone Thomas Dolié as toreador Escamillo and tenor François Rougier as the man obsessed with Carmen, Don José. In this concert performance version, too, »Carmen« promises to set the auditorium on fire.