Oper: Carmen

Carmen relived: Reduced, unexpected - an opera legend in the mirror of memory.

With its version of Carmen, the boxopera dares to take a distinctive, completely new approach to one of the most frequently performed works in opera history. The large choral scenes - the heart of traditional performances - give way here to an intimate, psychologically dense narrative style.

Plot

The plot jumps forward two decades: Carmen is dead, but her presence lives on - as a memory, as an obsession, as a hallucination. Don José, Escamillo and Michaëla remember their fate, while the writer Prosper Mérimée brings them back to life in conversations with the three Protangonists. Carmen appears - young, free and unbroken - as a projection, as a spirit figure from the afterlife.

The contrasts between past and present, memory and reality are brought to the stage by the age of the performers and by poetic lighting design. A string ensemble and the music director on the grand piano will provide musical accompaniment to Bizet's famous music - in a reduced but intense version. New dialogues give the characters additional depth and create a bridge between literature, music and theatre.

Instrumentation:

String Ensemble: KM Patrizia Pacozzi, Matthias Bruns, Lucie Koči, Fabienne Imoberdorf, Matthias Walpen, Mátyas Vinczi

Conductor: Andrea Del Bianco

Soloists: Sarina Weber, Antonia Bourvé, Peter Bernhard, Cheyne Davidson, Matthias Fankhauser

Arrangement and composition: Raban Brunner

Libretto: Bruno Rauch

Director: Annette Leistenschneider

Set design: Andreas Mayer and Ulli Kremer

Make-up: Béatrice Mendelin

Technology: Marek Streit

Stage management: Marc Condrau

Duration: 2.5h incl. intermission - Sung in French (with German surtitles), dialogues in German

Introduction to opera: 19:00 to 19:15

Box office available, cash payment and TWINT possible.

Participating artists: boxopera