When will I see a Carmen set in 19th-century Seville?
No critic sets out to be a reactionary, even though it’s much easier that way. There’s no real satisfaction in rejecting novelty on sight; no joy in measuring a living performance against your record collection and coming down, every time, in favor of the dead Nazi. I get that. Still, it’s a plain fact that in three decades of regular opera-going, I have never – not once – seen a live production of Carmen that locates the action in 19th-century Seville. Or one that centers the visual elements – mantillas, sunshine, picture-postcard Spanishness – that directors tell us (and how they tell us!) have become such clichés.
