We’ve returned to La Scala on this week’s Sunday Opera (9/20 3:00 p.m.) and their recent production of Bizet’s “Carmen.” Initially, the opera was reviled and labeled obscene, but after Bizet’s sudden death at the age of 36 on the night of its 32nd performance, interest grew in the opera, and its initial critics came to see it as the masterpiece that Tchaikovsky declared it to be.
Just about everyone knows the story of one of opera’s worst “bad girls” who meets her end at the hands of the man she corrupts and abandons, and it’s interesting how there are now worse stories seen on daytime television today.
In this performance, you’ll hear Clemantine Margaine as Carmen. Don Jose is Vittorio Grigolo. The innocent Micaela is Natalia Tanasii. and Giorgi Manaoshvili is the Toreador Escamillo.
Rounding out the cast are Pierre Doyen, Loic Felix, Marine Chagnon, and Sarah Dufresne. They’re joined by the Treble Voice Chorus from the La Scala Academy and the La Scala Orchestra and Chorus. Myung-Whun Chung conducts.
Stay tuned after the opera for a bit more music of Bizet, his “Roma – Symphony” and an extract from a forgotten opera buffo by Adolph Adam entitled “Le Toreador” featuring Mady Mesple.
