The many faces of Carmen
Seville is famous for many typically Spanish, and Andaluz, things: tapas, flamenco, bullfighting, Semana Santa — and Carmen. Bizet's 1875 opera, based on a novella by Prosper Mérimée, has been a firm favourite for years, with its tragic story of the beautiful, fiery gypsy girl who works in the cigarette factory, her soldier-turned-smuggler boyfriend, and her bullfighter lover; in the end (spoiler alert) the soldier kills her in a fit of jealous rage.
The cigarette factory in the tale, the Real Fábrica de Tabacos, is situated next door to the Alfonso XIII hotel and opposite the Parque María Luisa, and is now part of Seville University. It is the setting this summer for an open-air Carmen, by the excellent local theatre company Producciones Imperdibles, as part of the 21 Grados festival of music, theatre and cinema, as well as an exhibition on the original factory and its workers, Bizet and Mérimée, gypsies, smugglers and bullfighters.
As part of the Asómate al Patio season in the Diputación's courtyard, you can see Carlos Saura's film version (14 September), from 1983. Lastly, in October (1, 8 and 15), the Centro Cultural Cajasol is showing six of the many film versions, made between 1938 and 2003, in their "Carmen en el cine" season. Then, in November (18–28), the Teatro Lope de Vega is hosting an adaptation by the Teatro Clásico de Sevilla.
There is even a Carmen route you can follow: it starts by the Torre de Oro, where the cigarette girls waited for the tobacco to arrive by ship at the river quay, and includes the factory, Callejón del Agua, Calle de la Judería and the Cuartel de la Puerta de la Carne (army barracks), ending up at the bullring. So that will give you an idea of just how popular Carmen remains in Seville, her pueblo natal.
Back in 2004, the biggest ever multi-location, open-air staging of Carmen was going to take place from 2–11 September. It had a budget of 20 million euros, and was to be directed by Carlos Saura, with top international names from the music world: sopranos Angela Gheorghiu and Montserrat Martí in the leading role, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and flamenco guitarists José Mercé and Tomatito. Sets had been built, costumes made, extras hired, logistics meticulously planned for the cast, crew and 12,000-person audience.
Then, less than a month before it was due to open, the organisers pulled out, citing financial problems. They left a very, very irate Ayuntamiento, which had spent much time, effort and money planning the whole show, and a very, very disappointed public, both here and all over the world, who had been looking forward to this amazing spectacle. It was to have had three locations: the Fábrica de Tabacos (naturally), Plaza de España, and the bullring, with intervals between each act for everyone to move to the next place. The Paseo Marqués de Contadero was to be turned into a 19th-century boulevard, complete with inns and horse-and-carriages.
The company responsible, which had staged similar shows in the Forbidden City in Beijing (Turandot) and Luxor (Aida), was called Opera on Original Site, and was the brainchild of Michael Ecker. He was calling this production Carmen en Sevilla.
Now there is talk of resurrecting the idea, partly to erase the bitter aftertaste left by the massive let-down from six years ago. The culture delegate for Sevilla, Maribel Montaño, has announced that the ICAS (Instituto de las Cultura y las Artes de Sevilla) is looking into the possibility of reviving the plan which ended in such a high-profile fiasco, as part of its three-year programme of events dedicated to the gypsy girl, under their Myths of Seville season (the other two operatic figures are Figaro and Don Juan).
It would be on a smaller, more realistic scale, with an audience of just 5,000. If she manages to pull it off, it will be an amazing achievement (both the planning and the show itself), and I will be first in the queue to buy my ticket — providing they promise me a refund in the case of, er, "technical problems".