Baths of Caracalla 15 July 2022 - Carmen | GoComGo.com

Carmen

Baths of Caracalla, Rome, Italy
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Friday 15 July 2022
9 PM
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Important Info
Type: Opera
City: Rome, Italy
Starts at: 21:00
Acts: 4
Intervals: 1
Duration: 3h 10min
Sung in: French
Titles in: Italian,English

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Festival

Festival Di Caracalla 2022

The summer season of Rome's opera house was finally returned to its historic venue at the Baths of Caracalla in 2022, leaving behind the Circus Maximus after two years.

Overview

From the novel by Prosper Mérimée
Libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy

History
Premiere of this production: 03 March 1875, Opéra-Comique, Paris

Carmen is an opera in four acts by French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on a novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first performed by the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 3 March 1875, where its breaking of conventions shocked and scandalized its first audiences.

Synopsis

Place: Seville, Spain, and surrounding hills
Time: Around 1820

Act 1

A square, in Seville. On the right, a door to the tobacco factory. At the back, a bridge. On the left, a guardhouse.

A group of soldiers relaxes in the square, waiting for the changing of the guard and commenting on the passers-by ("Sur la place, chacun passe"). Micaëla appears, seeking José. Moralès tells her that "José is not yet on duty" and invites her to wait with them. She declines, saying she will return later. José arrives with the new guard, who is greeted and imitated by a crowd of urchins ("Avec la garde montante").

As the factory bell rings, the cigarette girls emerge and exchange banter with young men in the crowd ("La cloche a sonné"). Carmen enters and sings her provocative habanera on the untameable nature of love ("L'amour est un oiseau rebelle"). The men plead with her to choose a lover, and after some teasing she throws a flower to Don José, who thus far has been ignoring her but is now annoyed by her insolence.

As the women go back to the factory, Micaëla returns and gives José a letter and a kiss from his mother ("Parle-moi de ma mère!"). He reads that his mother wants him to return home and marry Micaëla, who retreats in shy embarrassment on learning this. Just as José declares that he is ready to heed his mother's wishes, the women stream from the factory in great agitation. Zuniga, the officer of the guard, learns that Carmen has attacked a woman with a knife. When challenged, Carmen answers with mocking defiance ("Tra la la... Coupe-moi, brûle-moi"); Zuniga orders José to tie her hands while he prepares the prison warrant. Left alone with José, Carmen beguiles him with a seguidilla, in which she sings of a night of dancing and passion with her lover—whoever that may be—in Lillas Pastia's tavern. Confused yet mesmerised, José agrees to free her hands; as she is led away she pushes her escort to the ground and runs off laughing. José is arrested for dereliction of duty.

Act 2

Lillas Pastia's Inn

Two months have passed. Carmen and her friends Frasquita and Mercédès are entertaining Zuniga and other officers ("Les tringles des sistres tintaient") in Pastia's inn. Carmen is delighted to learn of José's release from two months' detention. Outside, a chorus and procession announces the arrival of the toreador Escamillo ("Vivat, vivat le Toréro"). Invited inside, he introduces himself with the "Toreador Song" ("Votre toast, je peux vous le rendre") and sets his sights on Carmen, who brushes him aside. Lillas Pastia hustles the crowds and the soldiers away.

When only Carmen, Frasquita and Mercédès remain, smugglers Dancaïre and Remendado arrive and reveal their plans to dispose of some recently acquired contraband ("Nous avons en tête une affaire"). Frasquita and Mercédès are keen to help them, but Carmen refuses, since she wishes to wait for José. After the smugglers leave, José arrives. Carmen treats him to a private exotic dance ("Je vais danser en votre honneur ... La la la"), but her song is joined by a distant bugle call from the barracks. When José says he must return to duty, she mocks him, and he answers by showing her the flower that she threw to him in the square ("La fleur que tu m'avais jetée"). Unconvinced, Carmen demands he show his love by leaving with her. José refuses to desert, but as he prepares to depart, Zuniga enters looking for Carmen. He and José fight, and are separated by the returning smugglers, who restrain Zuniga. Having attacked a superior officer, José now has no choice but to join Carmen and the smugglers ("Suis-nous à travers la campagne").

Act 3

A wild spot in the mountains

Carmen and José enter with the smugglers and their booty ("Écoute, écoute, compagnons"); Carmen has now become bored with José and tells him scornfully that he should go back to his mother. Frasquita and Mercédès amuse themselves by reading their fortunes from the cards; Carmen joins them and finds that the cards are foretelling her death, and José's. The women depart to suborn the customs officers who are watching the locality. José is placed on guard duty.

Micaëla enters with a guide, seeking José and determined to rescue him from Carmen ("Je dis que rien ne m'épouvante"). On hearing a gunshot she hides in fear; it is José, who has fired at an intruder who proves to be Escamillo. José's pleasure at meeting the bullfighter turns to anger when Escamillo declares his infatuation with Carmen. The pair fight ("Je suis Escamillo, toréro de Grenade"), but are interrupted by the returning smugglers and girls ("Holà, holà José"). As Escamillo leaves he invites everyone to his next bullfight in Seville. Micaëla is discovered; at first, José will not leave with her despite Carmen's mockery, but he agrees to go when told that his mother is dying. As he departs, vowing he will return, Escamillo is heard in the distance, singing the toreador's song.

Act 4

A square in Seville. At the back, the walls of an ancient amphitheatre

Zuniga, Frasquita and Mercédès are among the crowd awaiting the arrival of the bullfighters ("Les voici ! Voici la quadrille!"). Escamillo enters with Carmen, and they express their mutual love ("Si tu m'aimes, Carmen"). As Escamillo goes into the arena, Frasquita and Mercedes warn Carmen that José is nearby, but Carmen is unafraid and willing to speak to him. Alone, she is confronted by the desperate José ("C'est toi ! C'est moi !"). While he pleads vainly for her to return to him, cheers are heard from the arena. As José makes his last entreaty, Carmen contemptuously throws down the ring he gave her and attempts to enter the arena. He then stabs her, and as Escamillo is acclaimed by the crowds, Carmen dies. José kneels and sings "Ah! Carmen! ma Carmen adorée!"; as the crowd exits the arena, José confesses to killing the woman he loved.

Venue Info

Baths of Caracalla - Rome
Location   Viale delle Terme di Caracalla

On 27 July 1937, the Governor of Rome Piero Colonna had summoned the representatives of the press to illustrate the previously deliberated initiative, which envisaged the construction of an open-air theater within the archaeological complex of the Baths of Caracalla and the consequent performances of operas starting from the following August 1st.

The Roman summer of the "twenty years" was enriched with a further space dedicated to music and in particular to melodrama, since, it should be remembered, that the orchestra of S. Cecilia performed, during the summer period, at the Basilica of Maxentius.
In reality it was born as an experiment, according to the words of the Governor, which turned into an unmissable appointment both for citizens and for especially international tourism. It was also decisive for the definitive arrangement of the structures of the then Royal Opera House and for the working continuity of all the technical and artistic employees.
Defined with the wording "Teatro del popolo" it became increasingly connoted as an expression of a rediscovered and affirmed popular taste. In this regard, it is fair to recall that in 1937 Verona inaugurated its twenty-first opera season at the Arena.
The stage with its technological systems, designed and set up by Pericle Ansaldo, was positioned inside one of the classrooms located next to the tepidarium , due to its size, 1500 square meters of surfaces and a 22 m proscenium, it became the largest stage of the world. The stalls had 8,000 seats, divided into six sectors.
The first season was actually short, just eight days with five performances in total, three of Lucia di Lammermoor and two of Tosca. “Unforgettable show in a unique setting in the world; of such a suggestive power as to seem unreal”, with these words began the article that appeared in Il Giornale d'Italia on 8 August 1937.
The following year the works increased to six ( La Gioconda , Mefistofele , Aida , Lohengrin , Isabeau directed by Mascagni himself, and Turandot ) for a total of 28 performances, starting from June 30th and ending on August 15th. The substantial change however was that of the new and definitive location of the stage inside the exedra of the calidariumand the expansion of the stalls which was brought to a capacity of 20,000 seats. Because of the war, the summer opera season in Caracalla was suspended until 1944. It will resume in 1945 in a triumphal way. From that year until 1993 it was a very important point of reference for musical culture and perhaps the most evocative place among those dedicated to open-air entertainment.
Unfortunately, on August 14, 1993 the curtain finally fell on the Theater at the Baths of Caracalla.
Since 2001 the shows have resumed at the Theater at the Baths of Caracalla with a new logistical situation, in which the monumental ruins are no longer an integral part of the stage and therefore of the show itself, remaining in any case a unique and extraordinary setting for the Summer Opera Season and of Ballet of the Teatro dell'Opera of Rome.

Important Info
Type: Opera
City: Rome, Italy
Starts at: 21:00
Acts: 4
Intervals: 1
Duration: 3h 10min
Sung in: French
Titles in: Italian,English
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