Georges Bizet’s opera «Carmen» occupies a special place in the history of the Stanislavsky Musical Theater.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko. This is the fourth production of the French composer’s masterpiece on our stage. In 1924, a play called «Carmencita and the Soldier» was staged in his Music Studio by V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko. The production was successfully shown on theater tours in Europe and the USA and went down in history as one of the first examples of an unconventional director’s interpretation of a classic plot.
In 1935, K.S. Stanislavsky turned to the opera. «I felt only the general tone of the production, which will distinguish our „Carmen“ from hundreds of others. She should be more popular, so to speak. In the first act, we need authentic tobacco factory workers, authentic soldiers, authentic peasants like Jose and Michaela. In the second and third acts, there are genuine smugglers with their slum, murders, and constant adventure…» he wrote while working on the opera. The play, created in 1969 by Walter Felsenstein, was one of the first occasions when a foreign director was invited to the production and returned the original version of the opera with spoken dialogues to the domestic stage.
The current production of the opera Carmen was performed by director Alexander Titel and artist Vladimir Arefyev in 1999 and has been loved by the public for more than a quarter of a century. During this time, several generations of singers have changed in the play, but each time the auditorium is watching with intense attention the dramatic love story and the irreconcilable clash of bright characters.
