The Paramount Theater 6/21–6/22
Man meets woman. Woman seduces man. Man leaves wife. Woman leaves man for a bullfighter. All hell breaks loose.
It’s a story as old as—well, as old as 1845, when Prosper Mérimée wrote a novella about it. Thirty years later, French composer Georges Bizet enlisted librettists Henri Meilhac and Lodovic Halévy to shape it into his most famous work, the four-act opera Carmen. Upon its debut, the opera shocked audiences with indelicate subjects like murder and adultery, but it didn’t muster a sensation until years later when, three months after the opera hit Paris, Bizet dropped dead at age 36, unaware that his work would go on to become one of the most well-known and oft-performed pieces in history, including a made-for-TV version in 2001 with Beyoncé.
The Charlottesville Opera performs the beloved piece with tenor Chauncey Packer as the beguiled Don José, bass-baritone Richard Ollarsaba as peacocking bullfighter Escamillo, and mezzo-soprano Audrey Babcock (above) in the seductive titular role.
Though she prides herself on a résumé rich with contemporary roles, Babcock counts more than 200 performances in 30 productions as Carmen. She’s embodied the persona so often that it seems to have to have taken on a life of itself: She co-created an “operatic choreopoem using flamenco dance” in Carmen: Shadow of My Shadow as well as Beyond Carmen, a feminist, genre-spanning musical homage.
Here in the traditional version of the opera, Babcock demonstrates her prowess with the original Bizet interpretation wherein her fluency gives wings to flamenco-inspired bangers that gather crowds. Even the least classical music-minded will muster recognition of Spanish-tinged “Habanera” aka “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle” love is a rebellious bird) or the stirring riff of Carmen Suite No. 1 with its “Toreador March.” It’s sung in French with English subtitles, but all you really need to know is that you’ll be entertained with seduction, betrayal, and a killing in a story spanning two-plus hours.
