I decided to take refuge from NYC's winter rains in sunny Seville, and headed down to see Elina Garanca's
polarizing Carmen on Tuesday evening. I'm glad I did: she has a vocally superb Carmen ("Duh!" you may exclaim, Gentle Readers; and you are right to do so, given the reactions of the international press. Still, I was genuinely surprised by just how good she was.) Furthermore, I feel as though she also has a fascinating Carmen just waiting to break free. There are more details on Richard Eyre's production in my review of the
performance I saw last season, with a different cast, than I'll include here. Although it's fair to say that Eyre could have exploited and explored the 1930s setting of his Carmen more, the production stood up very well for me in this second viewing. The action flows well, there's a clear point of view on Carmen's world, it can comfortably house a variety of different interpretative choices, and caricature is avoided.
