Fridae

There are few things larger than life than opera. And according to some, an opera is never great without beautiful singing, splendid costumes, dramatic wooing and fighting, and at least one character expiring before the curtain falls for the night.

Since 2006, the Metropolitan Opera began the tradition of streaming its live opera performances simultaneously on high definition to cinema theatres. For the price of about 3 movie tickets, you could watch in a cinema in the UK the Met’s performance in New York. This year, the Royal Opera House attempts to outdo the Met by putting up an opera in 3D, also for the price of about 3 movie tickets. This is not a simultaneous broadcast but a very limited screening, however.

Opera buffs should be familiar with the premise of Carmen. A free-spirited gypsy snares the heart of a soldier but the affair will ruin his career and self-respect and she will die in the end, the author of her own fate and arbiter of her own freedom.

Perhaps as a result of being filmed for the cinema, the stage direction for Carmen 3D is more daring than what we’ve been used to at the opera house. Whether it’s Carmen serenading the guards, the dance sequence in Lila Pastia’s inn, or the fiery to and fro between Carmen and Don Jose, the direction is physical, sexualised, and bawdy – and more intensely emotional than typical stage productions of the opera.

The camerawork and editing for Carmen 3D attempts to move away from the “3 static angles” style of filming stage productions, and the result almost looks like a film (albeit shot on a stage using stage props). This means you aren’t going to feel that you’re watching the same opera as the audience at the Royal Opera House. This may be a good or a bad thing depending on how you like your operas done.

There are films that are shot like stage productions (the Rob Marshall musical oeuvre) and stage productions that are made into true films (U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, Sweeney Todd). As it stands, Carmen 3D occupies an interesting middle ground between these two.