Andreas Homoki on his time-travelling Carmen at EIF: 'any attempt to approach Carmen realistically must fail'

Andreas Homoki’s new take on Bizet’s much-loved opera goes back to its 1875 premiere and starts time-travelling from there, writes David Kettle​

‘Look at something like The Muppets. You can clearly see how it’s all done, but you’re totally embraced by the characters that are being created. It’s as if the creators are saying: ‘This is theatre, and we’re playing with you’ but you’re still being sucked in.”

German-born director Andreas Homoki is using what’s maybe a surprising analogy to shine a light on his own approach to Georges Bizet’s iconic opera Carmen – and, specifically, the unapologetic irony and self-awareness that his witty, somewhat provocative staging embraces. It forms part of the Edinburgh International Festival’s rich strand of opera for 2024, and it travels to the Festival Theatre after hugely successful runs at Paris’s Opéra-Comique and Zurich Opera, where Homoki is Director General.

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At its heart, Homoki’s conception of Carmen sets out to answer a fundamental question lurking behind Bizet’s evergreen potboiler. It’s undeniably a great work, with a thrilling story of a sultry Seville seductress and the amorous spell she casts on reluctant recruit Don José, complete with gypsies, bullfights and sparkling tunes that are adored the world over. “It was actually the first opera I ever saw,” Homoki admits. “And I thought it was stunning – in terms of its music, and in the way it’s crafted with its theatrical contrasts. It’s just perfect. So it’s no wonder it’s been so successful.”

Carmen PIC: Stefan BrionCarmen PIC: Stefan Brion
Carmen PIC: Stefan Brion

So far, so good. But it’s also an opera that raises some significant questions, for performers and audiences alike. “The big challenge is that it’s essentially an opéra comique, not a big tragic opera,” Homoki continues, “and it consists of various musical numbers that have extremely different characters. You might be in the middle of a very dramatic scene, only for the whole thing to switch so that you find yourself in what’s almost a cabaret. So I believe that any attempt to approach Carmen realistically must fail, because at these points it becomes ridiculous.”

Homoki has a point. Just think of Carmen’s setting: a steamy, exotic Spain, where love ignites between a tobacco factory and a bullring. But is this really Spain at all? “When the opera was first performed,” Homoki explains, “Spain was so far away, and super- exotic. I’m sure the majority of early audiences had never been there. But this version of Spain has been so exploited in kitschy postcards and flamenco tour shows – it’s not innocent any more, and you can’t put it on stage without it becoming immediately fake.” Okay, if Bizet’s Spain – derived, of course, from the Spain evoked in Prosper Mérimée’s novel on which the opera is based – is more imagined than actual, how do you represent it on stage, let alone deal with the opera’s shifts in tone and mood? “You need to find a theatrical language that allows you to switch between these various requirements,” Homoki says teasingly.

What the director came up with, however, is as perceptive as it is simple. Bizet’s opera was first performed at Paris’s Opéra-Comique in March 1875 (where it scandalised early audiences – and Bizet would die suddenly in June that year, aged just 36, before he could see its success). “I had the honour of being asked to direct Carmen at the Opéra-Comique,” Homoki continues, “and, with theatre people being superstitious, it was almost as if you could smell or sense the phantoms of Carmen in the place.”

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His ingenious solution was to locate his production in the Opéra-Comique itself, harnessing those operatic ghosts as well as the venue’s bricks, mortar and steel girders (designed by Gustave Eiffel, no less) in a staging whose subject is the history of Carmen itself. “I’ve never believed in setting up different locations in my work. It’s never realistic – it’s always a location of fantasy or imagination. And in this case, we said the location is the empty stage of the Opéra-Comique – which, in the original production, was literally what it was.”

Carmen PIC: Stefan BrionCarmen PIC: Stefan Brion
Carmen PIC: Stefan Brion

With that in mind, rather than shifting locations from act to act, Homoki shifts times. “Act III is traditionally in the mountains with the smugglers, but we thought: what if it’s still on the stage of the Opéra-Comique, but many years later?” His smugglers, therefore, become figures in the French Resistance, or wartime spivs. For his final act, Homoki time-travels again – this time, far closer to our own era, and with a particularly neat way of conveying the opera’s climactic bullfight.

If Homoki’s Carmen is about the history of Carmen and the opera’s enduring popularity, then it stands to reason that the audience should play a central role too. After all, it’s audiences who have generated that enduring success. Attendees can sit safely in their seats, however: they’re played on stage by the opera’s chorus. “In that way we’ve taken the audience on stage,” Homoki smiles, “and allowed them to interact with what’s happening.” Most importantly, the central figure of Don José is very much one of us: “He’s a contemporary person from today, and he gets sucked into the story.” Similarly, Homoki’s Carmen – sung, as in Paris, by French mezzo Gaëlle Arquez – is very much a modern figure. “She doesn’t give a shit about conventions – she doesn’t lie, neither to herself nor to others. I think this is key – she’s not a sex monster, as she’s sometimes portrayed. She lives her life without compromise – and that’s what makes her so dangerous.”

Talking of modern perspectives, the opera’s brutal conclusion is a moment that many directors have questioned or subverted, in the context of our belatedly greater understanding of domestic abuse and violence. Not Homoki, however. “This is a problem in society that exists – we know that. So we have to talk about it. But how can we talk about it if we deny it?

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Is it a high-concept production? In many ways, yes. But it’s a joyfully faithful staging in other ways – one that remains sincere to the opera’s imaginary, unapologetically artificial setting, but is no less involving for that. It’s a case of being aware of how things are being done, but being gripped by them nonetheless – and we’re back to Homoki’s love of The Muppets. “You’re not trying to be real,” he concludes. “You’re trying to play with it all. The opera’s serious things are taken absolutely seriously. But then the things that might be in danger of being embarrassing or kitschy, they’re twisted with irony.”

Carmen is at the Festival Theatre on 4, 6 & 8 August. For more information and to book tickets, visit www.eif.co.uk

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