A Re-imagining of Bizet’s Classic Opera – Carmen

On November 22, 2016, at Club 120 in Toronto, Loose TEA Theatre presents a radically re-visioned Carmen—a refreshing change from the familiar perspective of Bizet’s opera. Carmen is often classed as one of the few elite works in the Western music tradition that occupies the mantle of collective cultural memory – and is performed unchanged. With a new English libretto by Alaina Viau, and with the collaboration of sound artist SlowPitchSound, Carmen will be presented not as a love story, but a class story. It is a gendered story, one that is driven by inequality and abuses of power—by conflict, struggle, and hope.

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Loose TEA Theatre’s Carmen challenges the view that Carmen is an exotic temptress who toys with Don José’s heart. Can she be seen as simply a working woman forced, by her social position, to interact with the soldiers of the Spanish military elite, eventually leading to her undoing? Is she a woman negotiating her lot within the terrain of a gendered, violent, and class society, whose positions of power are largely occupied—and abused—by men?

The part of Carmen is sung by mezzo-soprano Erica Iris, John Anderson (Don José) by tenor Ryan Harper, Michaela (Micaëla) by Beth Hagerman, and Ricardo (Escamillo) by baritone Andrey Andreychik. The work will be sung in English. Alaina Viau, librettist & director, and Music Director Jennifer Tung. The show will run 55 minutes with one intermission featuring piano accompaniment and sound design by SlowPitchSound.