Film Director’s Note
This opera evening has had a lasting effect on me: I have never seen a "Carmen" like it. How Stephan Märki draws an arc from the prelude all the way to the finale and tells the story of a woman who is a seducer because she is incapable of love is psychoanalytically truthful. It shows us the familiar Carmen figure in a new light. Märki tracing the story back to the ancient Narcissus myth underlines the modernity of his interpretation. This is how we are as human beings, Märki and his collaborators, conductor Mario Venzago and costume designer Philipp Fürhofer, seem to say, fearing what we most desire. Carmen’s anguish when Don José confesses his love to her; her ice-cold reaction "non, tu ne m'aimes pas", when she not only rejects his love, but also fortifies her own inner barriers which had briefly begun to waver… this is so clearly staged that Claude Eichenberger's every nuanced expression and gesture are filled with meaning and vitality. The passionate commitment and the captivating musicality of all the performers, Carmen, Micaëla, Don José, Escamillo and the smuggler gang are completely gripping.
I immediately felt the desire to record this opera in Stephan Märki's new interpretation. His precise reading is well revealed by the magnifying eye of the camera. The 4th wall falls away, the stage space continues into the auditorium, the male chorus sits in the upper tiers as part of the audience, and Don José is also initially a simple operagoer. Philipp Fürhofer's room-high mirror wall pulls the audience into the action on stage. The conductor too is part of the action and his reflection can be seen at the beginning of the opera and as the last picture.
The music is the game leader; the conductor and director have arranged the piece by returning to Bizet's first version in such a way that nothing interrupts the essential features of the musical narrative.
Camera work and editing techniques have been put entirely in the service of the musical sensibility of Stephan Märki's production.
