Carmen Unpacked
By Nick Pelling
I need to start with a confession: I find opera a bit depressing. The beautiful women always seem to die in the final act. Usually by melodramatically throwing themselves over a cardboard parapet, or something. But always, the real killer is, of course, love.
So, probably I was not the right person to review Becoming Carmen at The Stables Theatre last week, but somehow it fell to me. However, in a curious way, I was also the ideal person to review this. The reason being that the Hastings-based, ‘Prologue Opera’ company, in its own words, has a mission “to make opera accessible” to the uncultured hordes. No, sorry. To make opera “accessible to those who haven’t had the chance to enjoy the artform”.
The unique selling point of Prologue Opera is that they create a short, original, musical theatre ‘prologue’ that will explain and unpack, in English, what a classic opera is actually about; so that the uninitiated can then understand why the characters become so upset. In this case, the mission was to give us the backstory of the characters in Georges Bizet’s Carmen. The company evidently had fun with this project and took some entertaining liberties with the original music and plot.
The whole story is yanked out of the nineteenth century and placed in fascist Spain in the thirties. The doomed lovers, Carmen (beautifully played by Meriel Cunningham) and soldier Don Jose (Anthony Flaum) are on different sides of Spain’s ideological torment. This untethering from history also allowed the insertion of popular songs from other eras. It was great to hear the barmaid, Mercedes (Alice Privett), explain her hard-headed philosophy of love via the classic, Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend. (At least they don’t kill you. Ed) I had no idea that Carmen was a meditation on feminism.
Needless to say, this being opera, the plot (spoiler alert) will not end well for Carmen. Don Jose has become utterly possessed by her raven hair and red lips and is unable to cope with not taming this free bird. And therefore of course, being a man, he has to kill the thing he loves.
I found myself wondering why so many heroines die in operas. It is in some ways an artform soaked in death. Even poor Georges Bizet died suddenly aged 36, not even knowing that his masterpiece was going to be an eternal classic. Who knew opera was such a dangerous business? But I have to admit, Prologue Opera is a genius idea. The founders of the company, Anthony Flaum and Celena Bridge, have hit on a brilliant formula and their professional team is evidently brimming with talent. Go and hear them when you get the chance. But whatever you do, don’t fall in love.
• More details at prologueopera.com
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