ketchup catch up

In the interest of playing catch-up, my second post today will take us back to December 20, when I fought my way, tooth and claw, into the second-last available seat at La Scala and settled in to see Emma Dante's new production of Carmen.

I LOVED IT!

Half the symbolism went right over my head - I went home and did a lot of googling - but the overwhelming feeling that I was witnessing some sort of pagan cult ritual was what was really important about the production. The costuming and props recalled, I am told, a lot of Sicilian religious imagery, and in my opinion, there was something more deep-seated than that. The images and symbols meant something to me though I didn't know what they meant; Emma Dante has succeeded, I think, in touching some part of the collective unconscious of her audience that, depending on education and experience, will be articulated more or less easily by each member, but nonetheless felt.
Let me give you a few examples.
Micaela, ever the angelic voice on Don José's shoulder, had a black robe pinned up around her that opened to reveal a white dress beneath, which denoted "Don José's mother"; something as simple as white and black imagery made the shift between the two characters impossible to mistake. She was accompanied by a robed priest, lanky and topped with a broad-brimmed hat that my googling told me was a "padre hat", typically worn by itinerant priests of rural congregations, as well as 4 altar boys, who set up a cross at a 40 degree angle to the ground wherever she went and prayed fervently while she sang.
I wish I could find a picture of the quadrilla of the toreador Escamillo for you. Nowhere in my googling could I find a quadrilla that dresses like this traditionally, so I have to assume there is some religious significance. There were 6 or so, and they were dressed in long white robes with sticks in the arms, so they could swish their sleeves when they danced. Their headdresses were comprised of white masks with white veils, recalling the KKK, but topped with an elaborate arrangement of white flowers. It was the strangest thing I have ever seen and if you know anything about this type of costuming, leave a comment!
The cigarette girls were nuns with flowers in their mouths who undressed, jumped in a bath, and frolicked in the water like sirens while the men gaped and Carmen sang the Habanera; the gypsy girls frequently had choreography that recalled rabid beasts. In fact, the only people that seemed untouched by symbolism were Carmen and Don José themselves, and maybe that is because the opera does a fine job of setting Carmen up as the archetypal femme fatale that is the demise of the Everyman, José, and that's enough symbolism as it is (by the way, Jonas Kaufmann is no Everyman. Apparently that wasn't even his best show, and I wanted to cry every time he opened his mouth. He also spent a good deal of the scene in Carmen's den with his shirt off, which was fine with me).
As you might have guessed the singing and direction (Daniel Barenboim) was exceptional across the board and the 25-year-old Anita Rachvelishvili was a sensational Carmen. Apparently she's booked all over the place for the role now. What a heady feeling it must be, at 25, to look up into the theatre and see a full house on their feet for you, and that house be one of the toughest crowds in the world to please. I feel like I witnessed a bit of history in the making.