Carmen - The New Yorker
The New Yorker
January 18, 2010

Richard Eyre’s new production of “Carmen”, set among the revolving walls of a dilapidated bullring in Franco-era Spain, is a daring, sexy replacement for Zeffirelli’s disappointing effort from 1996. With her compact but luxuriantly textured voice, Elina Garanca’s Carmen grows increasingly fatalistic as the opera approaches its final confrontation between the untamed Gypsy and her weak-willed lover, Don José (the stylish Roberto Alagna). Also with Barbara Frittoli and Mariusz Kwiecien; the conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, making his Met début, finds the suppleness and heat amid the melodic richness of Bizet’s score.