France's gypsy seductress returns to China for another operatic offering of "Carmen"

The tragic story of Carmen, the gypsy seductress who is murdered by her former suitor for falling in love with another man, is returning to Shanghai this April as part of 2007's Spring International Music Festival, 25 years after its premiere performance on the mainland. Conducted by internationally renowned maestro Michel Plasson, and with operatic diva Hadar Halevy in the lead, this year's performance will undoubtedly be a far cry from the 1982 initial staging of this French classic.

“[‘Carmen’ is] the most efficient, dramatic, powerful dialogue and text of all operas in the world,” says Pierre-Jean de San Bartolome, which is why it was chosen yet again to grace Shanghai's stage. San Bartolome, the founder of the Croisements/Jiaoliu Festival, is responsible for bringing this opera and many other French culture events to China over the next few months.

The first Western opera to be performed in China following the artistically barren decade of the Cultural Revolution, the 1982 “Carmen” was a cooperative project between the Chinese Central Opera in Beijing and the French Artistic Action Association, which will also be supporting the upcoming production in Shanghai. A quarter of a century ago, the Carmen that Chinese audiences had the opportunity to see and hear sang her famed arias of seduction and passion not in the language of its original authors Meilhac and Halévy, or its celebrated composer Georges Bizet, but in the local tongue of its audience.

Even when Carmen returned to China in 1997 to be performed in its original French version, the Chinese singers received months of French language coaching. And now, 10 years later, the passionate love story set against bullfights and toreadors, gypsy seductresses and sinister smugglers, is brought to Shanghai's Grand Theatre in world-class conditions and by some of the biggest names of European opera.

“[Carmen] is a role I love as it represents the freedom of every woman,” says Israeli-born mezzo-soprano Hadar Halevy, who has already flourished as Carmen in Dresden, Munich, Turin and San Francisco. "I find the role so endlessly rich that each performance is a new and spontaneous experience for me."

Halevy will come together with the illustrious Honorary Conductor of Toulouse's Orchestre et Choeurs du Capitole Maestro Michel Plasson for this all-star production. Renowned as the best interpreter and proponent of French music, Plasson recorded a prize-winning album of “Carmen” with the Toulouse National Symphony Orchestra. This time, the music will be performed by the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, whose musicians have already played under the guidance of Plasson's baton in 1999.

Celebrated and recognized across the world, "Carmen" will come to Shanghai in its entire classical splendor. With no adaptations or innovations required to make Chinese audiences understand the universal themes of passion, hate and freedom in love, or appreciate the tragic story of the gypsy beauty and her amorous adventures in 19th century Seville, the true innovation in this year's production is expected to be the scale of the staging and the caliber of its conductor and lead singer. Not only are the technical elements of the performance—from the lighting to the sound and the makeup and costumes—being designed in France, but part of the Chinese cast is receiving training in France from the production's director, Nadine Duffaut. Most significantly, Plasson returns to China this time in a more involved role, taking on the task of training the Chinese singers as well as the orchestra to ensure a seamless performance.

"Plasson is the best teacher of French symphonic and lyric music, and he is very excited to share his experiences with the new generation of Chinese singers and musicians," says San Bartolome, who is also the artistic director of the festival. The organizers hope that this year's “Carmen” will be a true culmination of Sino-French cooperation in the arts, combining the established experience of Western opera with the strong and dedicated voices of the rising stars in China's other opera.