Bizet: Carmen
B’Rock Orchestra / Chœur de Chambre de Namur / René Jacobs
A bullfight and burning passion
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.
Performers
B’Rock Orchestra vzw
Chœur de Chambre de Namur
Kinderchor der Opera Ballet Vlaanderen
Gaëlle Arquez Carmen
François Rougier Don José
Thomas Dolié Escamillo
Sabine Devieilhe Micaëla
Margot Genet Frasquita
Séraphine Cotrez Mercédès
Grégoire Mour Remendado
Emiliano Gonzalez Toro Dancaïre
Yoann Dubruque Moralès
Frédéric Caton Zuniga
director René Jacobs
Programme
Georges Bizet
Carmen / opéra-comique in four acts
Concert performance in French with German surtitles
Series
Opera in Concert
Live Broadcast
The concert will be available as a stream in the Elbphilharmonie Mediatheque from 21 April.