Boston Lyric Opera Opens Season with a Groundbreaking 'Carmen'

Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) opens its 40th season with Calixto Bieito's bold staging of Georges Bizet's "Carmen," the largest production the company has mounted in its four decades. Set in the arid earthiness of post-Franco Spanish North Africa, Carmen is a powerful account of a defiantly free-spirited woman and her obsessive lover. With the familiar story and iconic score that opera buffs and casual opera-goers alike know and love, BLO's "Carmen" opens September 23 for four performances through October 2. The run marks the company's debut at the Boston Opera House where Carmen will be the first professional opera produced at the venerable theater since 1991.

Bieito, the controversial Catalan opera and theater director, makes his U.S. opera debut in BLO's co-production with San Francisco Opera. Often called "the Quentin Tarantino of opera" for his no-holds-barred, raw re-imaginings of the classics, Bieito has been alternately hailed and reviled around the globe. One thing his productions have never been called is boring.

Bieito's "Carmen" premiered in 1999, and has been mounted around the world ever since. The action is set in the 1970s, in the blue-collar, autonomous seaside Spanish city of Ceuta on the north coast of Morocco. Of the work, Bieito has said, "This opera, from my point of view, deals with limits, the emotional and physical boundaries between people, and about freedom, love, violence, sorrow, desperation, solitude. Carmen is a young woman in the context of a difficult life where she has had to survive. She is intuitive, earthy, passionate, melancholy, sensitive -- a young person who desires to drink up life -- who is living in a dangerous and violent society. My 'Carmen' is not picturesque, nor folkloric, nor a collection of engravings of a stereotypical old Spain. It is a Carmen that walks across the border."

Following this American debut run, which played this spring in San Francisco, Bieito will direct a new production of Verdi's "La Forza del Destino" in the Metropolitan Opera's 2017-18 season.

The evocative production's design elements include Mercedes Benz W123 model cars, procured from throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, and other raw elements that suggest a gritty urban environment. The sedans were ubiquitous in Ceuta and surrounding areas, where they are used as "Grand Taxis," a popular form of transportation in the region. In keeping with Bieito's aesthetic, the production includes graphic violence, brief nudity, and suggestive behavior. Parental discretion is advised.

Recently acclaimed for her leading role in BLO's "Don Giovanni," mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano stars as the fiery, seductive gypsy who destroys the na�ve, lovesick soldier Don Jos�. Jos� is played by tenor Roger Honeywell, who will debut at Covent Garden next season in their production of "The Exterminating Angel." Returning after his extraordinary performances in the title role in BLO's "Rigoletto," baritone Michael Mayes will sing the role of the dashing bullfighter Escamillo. BLO's Jane & Steven Akin Emerging Artist, soprano Chelsea Basler sings the role of Mica�la. [Additional casting information is below.]

David Angus leads the largest company ever assembled for a BLO production with the recognized Boston Lyric Opera Orchestra and a chorus of 84 singers, including members of Voices Boston. Revival Director for this production is Bieito's frequent collaborator Joan Anton Rechi. The BLO / SFO co-production, based on Bieito's 1999 original, was built by the San Francisco Opera production department, reuniting the original creative team of set designer Alfons Flores and costume designer Merc� Paloma. Boston's production features lighting by award-winning theater, opera and dance designer Robert Wierzel, and wig and makeup design by Boston-based Jason Allen.

BLO's Stanford Calderwood General & Artistic Director Esther Nelson says, "Opening the 40th Season with 'Carmen' underscores another exciting turning point for BLO. Versions of this opera have been staged at significant moments in our history, most notably in 2000 when a free outdoor production, Carmen on the Common, surpassed attendance expectations with many thousands of operagoers, and launched BLO to greater city-wide awareness for a broader audience. We are eager for Boston audiences to see this provocative new production that underscores our commitment to exciting artists working within the iconic operatic canon but rethinking the traditional works for contemporary audiences."

Boston Lyric Opera's production of "Carmen" runs September 23 - October 2, 2016 at the Boston Opera House 539 Washington St., Boston, with evening performances at 7:00, 7:30 p.m. and Sunday matinees at 3:00 p.m.

Tickets are $25-$175 and are available online at blo.org, by phone at 617.542.6772, and in-person at the Boston Lyric Opera administrative offices, located at the Road Scholar Building, 11 Avenue de Lafayette, Fourth Floor, Boston, MA. The Box Office is open Monday through Friday, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. Group and student tickets are available through BLO Audience Services at 617.542.6772 or [email protected].

Pre-Performances talks are given one hour before each performance and are free to all ticket holders.

Season subscriptions are available through blo.org/tickets, or by contacting BLO Audience Services at 617.542.6772 or [email protected].