Carmen new ending in support of Italy’s battered women

[lennygoran]

A friend sent me this. Regards, Len


An Italian theatre director has rewritten the finale of Bizet’s Carmen to enlist the tragic heroine in a campaign to prevent violence against women, a social problem that cost more than a hundred lives in Italy last year.

In the revised final scene the gypsy cigar-maker is stabbed by her spurned lover, Don José, but manages to grab a pistol and shoot him, revolutionising the dénouement of Bizet’s opera in a version to be staged in Florence from Sunday. It is not clear if either, or both, succumbs to their injuries.

Leo Muscato, the director, has set the story in a gypsy camp in the late 1970s to create the same sense of distance that Bizet’s audience would have felt in 1875 from the almost contemporary story written by Prosper Mérimée. “We have decided to recount this Carmen maintaining a similar temporal distance,” Muscato explained in a note on the production.

The real artistic “betrayal” comes at the end, however, when the violent outcome is turned on its head. The modification was agreed upon with the theatre superintendent, Cristiano Chiarot, who questioned how a modern audience could applaud the murder of a young woman when women are being killed in Italy at a rate of almost three a week.

“The theme of death here reeks of male chauvinism: the woman must sacrifice herself in order to preserve her liberty. It’s a point of view that makes no sense today,” Muscato told La Repubblica newspaper.

The modern interpretation coincides with a debate on femicide at the Opera House in Florence.

The dress rehearsal on Friday is being combined with an event dubbed Carmen does not die, in which leading female intellectuals will share thoughts, experiences and readings on the subject of violence. Delegates are invited to wear something red, and to bring something red — shoes, scarves, clothing — to deposit symbolically at the entrance to the theatre.

The modification of the storyline and the debate on violence appear to have developed in parallel. “The new ending was supposed to be a secret. It was decided on about a month ago,” said Paolo Klun, a spokesman for the Teatro Maggio. “The librettists adapted stories they heard about into their works. That’s the kind of transposition that is happening here, but remaining respectful of the characters, the story and the music.”

The action takes place in a run-down gypsy camp surrounded by wire fences, where people live in bedraggled caravans; a grim social reality all too familiar on the outskirts of Italian cities.

“Carmen is an abused woman who suffers beatings and is seen bleeding and with a black eye. We want people to understand that,” Mr Klun said.

“The idea for the change came from the realisation that when the audience applauds at the end of the last act, they are applauding in the presence of a corpse,” he added.

The theatre management expressed similar sentiments in a recent letter to staff: “Only recently public opinion and politicians have started to mobilise against a phenomenon that is taking on terrifying dimensions around the world: violence against women, sexual abuse, discrimination and femicide.”

Italian police said today that the remains of a woman found dumped in the countryside near Verona had been identified as a missing Moroccan immigrant. She appeared to have been cut into pieces with a

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/worl ... -fjffr9mkc

[parsifal]

Are we also changing the end of Otello in order to support women who are killed in operas?
K. Nilsson

[david johnson]

“The idea for the change came from the realisation that when the audience applauds at the end of the last act, they are applauding in the presence of a corpse,” he added. - I would have assumed they were applauding the opera. When we applaud "West Side Story", we aren't applauding Tony's demise.

[barney]

Are we also changing the end of Otello in order to support women who are killed in operas?
K. Nilsson

Remove the abuse and misery from Berg's Lulu, and the opera runs for about seven minutes!

[lennygoran]

Are we also changing the end of Otello in order to support women who are killed in operas?
K. Nilsson

Remove the abuse and misery from Berg's Lulu, and the opera runs for about seven minutes!

K Nilsson, Barney, thanks for ideas I never thought of! Regards, Len