Scene from Carmen

Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday, my wife, Elaine and I saw Georges Bizet’s Carmen at The New York City Metropolitan Opera.  This is a modern version (2023) directed by Carrie Cracknell.  It trades the setting of Seville, Spain and a bullfight arena in the 1800s for modern day America and a rodeo.  While at first a bit distracting, it is my opinion that the setting worked even when a large semi (truck) dominated several scenes. The singers included:

Isabel Leonard – Carmen

Kristina Mkhitaryan – Micaëla

Matthew Polenzani – Don Jose

Adam Plachetka – Escamillo

Ms. Leonard was exceptional both for her singing and her acting.  Ms. Mkhitaryan likewise wowed the audience with her arias. Polenzani and Plashetka were good.

In sum, I would recommend it especially if you are open to new productions that take liberties with the setting.  The music is still outstanding.

Below is a review courtesy of The New York Classical Review.

Tony

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The New York Classical Review

With Leonard’s star power, Met staging delivers a “Carmen” for our times

Wed Oct 29, 2025 at 12:34 pm

By George Grella

Carrie Cracknell’s production of Carmen is back on stage at the Metropolitan Opera. Originally something of a star vehicle for debuting mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina, it had decidedly mixed reactions at its debut New Year’s Eve 2023. The consensus praised Akhmetshina and criticized Cracknell, but one felt it was the reverse, that it was an underwhelming performance inside a strong and intelligent staging.

With mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard in the title role of this revival, which opened Tuesday night, that impression was confirmed. With Leonard a stellar Carmen, holding the stage with compelling charisma and ably matched by tenor Michael Fabiano as Don José, this staging fulfills its original promise. (There are two cast changes later in the run.)

A contemporary updating that builds on the thematic foundation of Bizet’s score, the revival also features the excellent bass-baritone Adam Plachetka as Escamillo, here not a bullfighter but a rodeo star in a place that feels like somewhere in the Southwest. Stated as “an American industrial town,” the multiple cultural and ethnic styles of cast and chorus on stage show this as a fascinating liminal space where the North and Central America overlap, or maybe a new place made out of parts of each. The borders and governance are unclear and feel in flux.

This Carmen works at an arms factory, complete with a semi-trailer that is a crucial part of the staging parked in a loading dock. Don José is a corporal in the guard—the elegant bass Scott Conner is the captain, Zuniga—checking workers’ papers, men in tactical vests overseeing women. The smugglers Carmen and her friends Frasquita—soprano Madison Leonard in a fine debut—and Mercedes (mezzo-soprano Briana Hunter) are revolutionaries who drive a semi-trailer. The orchestra is led by Fabien Gabel, making his debut.

The success of the opera depends on a title character who is believably desirable, and as more than a sex object. Men are infatuated with her because her attention fulfills their best image of themselves. That comes through in the music and the singer’s voice.

Leonard’s singing made her an excellent Carmen. She had a full, rich tone, with a still-youthful clarity, with an easy, natural quality that brings character to the fore. Every phrase was full of musical personality. “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle” was full of shapely phrases, the sound of Carmen celebrating herself and the alluring quality coming out of her self-possession. Carmen should not have to try to seduce, she should be so compelling that she is effortlessly seductive, and Leonard was.

This was a subtle but profound dramatic element. Through her singing, the relationship with Don José had an innocence to its beginnings that made the later changes more powerful. Part of this was Fabiano, who has an ideal voice, at least for the first part of this character’s path. His yearning, romantic tenor is the perfect sound for a man energized by and lost in love, and also paired him well with soprano Kristina Mkhitaryan as Micaëla—who sang a luminous, charming ”Je dis que rien ne m’épouvante” in Act III, one of the musical highlights of the night. There first act duet was charming and showed José as a simple, but not simplistic, and sincere man.

Tuesday night, Carmen did not seduce him so much as get close to him, and he to her. From that point, one felt the deepening of their relationship in Act II, through Leonard’s poised and playful “Je vais danser en votre honneur” and his heartfelt “La fleur que tu m’avais jetée.” He was already on his way to succumbing to her before the encounter with Zuniga.

Escamillo is fundamental to the shifts in their relationship, and Plachetka’s ability to be comical and blustery, charismatic, and also arrogant made this work. His “Toreador Song” was snappy, with a touch of professional wrestling showmanship. In the vocal and physical fight with José in Act III, he seemed to expand while Fabiano’s character shrank. And so in Act IV, Fabiano cut away the color from his timbre and sang with a hard, gripping darkness that added great intensity to the final scene—he was more than just a romantic lead.

Leonard was commanding through all this, proud and argumentative in Act III and absolutely stern and unafraid in Act IV. The climactic moment is not just dramatic but specifically brutal, closing with a haunting image that shows Carmen’s death as not just an individual tragedy but a societal one as well.

In the pit Gabel launched into a thrillingly vivacious Prelude, and the feel of the performance was smooth and flexible, though a bit inconsistent. His pace and balances were fine, but he had a tendency toward a gentle languor that needed just a touch clearer articulation in rhythms and bass lines. He provided a sensitive and colorful accompaniment to the singers, but there were times when Leonard seemed to want faster tempos, and he was obdurate. Still, after ”Je dis que rien ne m’épouvante” he ramped up a focussed drive through the end.

What Cracknell (strangely not credited in the program) puts on stage was widely, and wildly, misunderstood as some kind of representation of small town life when it debuted. It is so much more than that. The guards feel like a militia, the smugglers are revolutionaries, the rodeo arena an uncanny mix of nationalism from different places. There is an arbitrariness to this society that feels increasingly familiar, a culture in not-so-slow-collapse. This is an honest Carmen for our moment, a world informed by the dystopian novels of Christopher Brown and William Gibson. With Leonard as the central human element, this is a superb revival.

Carmen runs through January 23. Matthew Polenzani replaces Michael Fabiano starting November 14; Aigul Akhmetshina, Janai Brugger, and Christian van Horn replace Isabel Leonard, Kristina Mkhitaryan, and Adam Plachetka staring January 11; Pier Giorgio Morandi conducts starting January 11. metopera.org