One of the world’s best-loved operas has been given a radically different ending in Italy, with the heroine killing her tormentor rather than being killed herself, in a stand against violence to women.
In Bizet’s original story, Don José is a naïve soldier who is lured away from his military duties and his childhood sweetheart by Carmen. But she then falls for the handsome bull-fighter Escamillo, driving Don Jose wild with jealousy. The last act of the opera is set outside the bullring in Seville, where Carmen is stabbed to death by Don José.
In what is believed to be a world first, a production of Bizet’s Carmen will see Carmen shoot her thwarted admirer Don José with a pistol that she grabs off him, rather than being stabbed to death by him.
The dramatic departure from operatic orthodoxy is an attempt to shine the spotlight on the modern-day abuse and mistreatment of women, an issue given added resonance by the outrage over the behaviour of Harvey Weinstein and Donald Trump.
The new version of Carmen will open at Florence’s opera house this weekend, with the first few nights already sold out.
“As far as we know it is the first time that the ending to Carmen has been changed,” the opera house’s Paolo Klun told The Telegraph.
The producers said they had changed the denouement of the story in part to protest at the large number of Italian women who are killed each year by jealous husbands, boyfriends and lovers.
Sociologists and campaigners say it is driven by men feeling threatened by the greater freedoms and enhanced economic independence that many Italian women now enjoy after decades of being seen as pliable possessions.
With horrific cases of domestic violence coming to light almost every month, the directors of the work said they were uncomfortable with the idea of audiences applauding the final scene, in which Carmen is stabbed to death and lies motionless on the stage.
“At a time when our society is having to confront the murder of women, how can we dare to applaud the killing of a woman?” said Cristiano Chiarot, the head of the opera house, the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. […]
HELL YEAH. ART IS MUTABLE. THE AUTHOR IS DEAD, LET’S GET MOVING.
This is very important.
In the arts there this taboo of keeping g everything as it is.. Which is frankly quite against the very nature of art.
Art shoukd go along with its times. That is not to say we should only make modern productions and ignore everything else… But we should really realise that it’s ART and it can change on interpretations… And interpretation is purely personal (along with cultural nuances).
In western arts This change has happened in theatre a lot… An it started in musical theatre, bit more recently (after the 90s)but is now well spread.
However in operatic world things have remained very eey traditional in the context.
Until recently you could even get an Otello with blackface in the omonymus opera in stages such as Royal Albert Hall, the Met, la Scalla etc
It’s time opera and the classical arts start realising how helpful modernisation can be… To actually relief what it means. It not about making minimalistic or avant gard persormances of shows… It’s about taking the context and making it fit politically and culturally
I hate opera because most of the stories sucks and are super misogynistic. Glad to see someone is making a difference. I’ll watch it if I were in Italy.
Italy gives world-famous opera Carmen a defiant new ending in stand against violence to women
A Force Sensitive Phasesixer 