The Issue Is Never the Issue—The Real Issue Is the Revolution. And the revolution is about destruction of traditional society and making everything ugly.
Everything they touch....
Everything.
Pitiful.
Carmen is quite feminist as it is, no matter it debuted in 1875. Carmen as a character is a VERY liberated woman. Absolutely modern - and self destructive in her compelling glamor.
Or maybe things in the 19th century weren’t quite as we imagine today. On the evidence of French arts (say, Zola, “Nana”) I would say so.
Elina Garanca may have done the definitive modern role - she can act too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2snTkaD64U
The sad part is that one COULD do a “modern” Carmen, very easily. And that is precisely because the original Carmen is very modern in its sensibility.
I may be going off the rails here, but a Hip Hop “hood” Carmen would definitively work. The parallels between Bizet’s exotic foreign demimonde and the American underclass (of various sorts, 1920’s-today) are striking.
Just last week I was directed to a production of Handel’s Messiah that was performed in Vienna few years ago.
Although Handel knew all about Opera, he chose to write “Messiah” as an Oratorio, which is performed without sets, scenery, costumes, or action. Nevertheless, the Singers “Act” as they express themselves through the Historically Correct Lyrics (taken from the KJV and Book of Common Prayer) which tell the story of the Birth, Death, Resurrection, and Coming Glory of Jesus Christ.
The Oratorio has survived nicely for nearly 300 years without sets and costumes.
But this Vienna Company just HAD to mess with it. The set is one long corridor from what looks like a 1940’s era office building, complete with a deaf cleaning lady.
“Comfort Ye My People” is sung by a competent Tenor at a FUNERAL, and the thing deteriorates from there on. “How Beautiful are the Feet of Him Who Brings Good News” is sung by a woman obsessing over her illicit lover’s FEET. Yuck! The whole thing was done in shades of black and grey, was very “political”, and was the most depressing experience of “Messiah” ever performed, in my humble opinion. I hesitate to provide the link, but if you are stout of heart and have no problem understanding that the emperor has no clothes, here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NgXggn91uY
Don’t say I didn’t warn you! Arrggghhhh!
To go a little deeper, the song Bizet stole from for his “Habanera” tune is also originally a “demimonde” fantasy.
This was originally a duet in “Habanera” style by the Spanish composer Iradier, from about 1860.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l0e3M3Ek4c
“El Arreglito” - the little arrangement, which should give you a clue as to the subtext.
I cant provide this with English subtitles, as it is not a normal part of the modern “art song” repertoire, unlike Iradiers “Paloma”.
The subject is a fellow trying a pickup line, and succeeding, in the context of the Havana, Cuba, bar scene of the mid 19th century, quite notorious in the Hispanosphere at the time. In other words, it is loaded with demimonde glamor.
As such it works superbly for, say, a setting in a San Francisco fern bar of the 1980’s. Which scene I knew very, very well.
As for its antecedents, consider Mozarts “La ci darem la mano” from “Don Giovanni” (1787). That thing is an absolute classic pickup scene. The brilliant lyricist, Da Ponte, packed absolute mountain ranges of irony and hypocrisy and lubricious subtext into that, with a handful of words that outdoes Tom Wolfe at his best.
I stopped going to symphony and opera just because these modern “improvements”.
People, going to classical music performances are by nature conservative or al least respectful for traditions.
You can have your gangsta rap, but stop fiddling with my opera!
Hmm....”Carmen Jones” (with Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte) was quite good.