This ever-popular opera is renowned for its cluster of magnetic melodic inventiveness that has captivated audiences worldwide. It has been said that the world of opera has many femmes fatales, but there is only one Carmen, with her vibrant sensuality as the gipsy cigarette girl with too great a capacity for love. Learn more about Steven Smith, Conductor.Teatru Astra's offering for the 2022 Opera month will feature Bizet's captivating masterpiece of passion, jealousy and betrayal - Carmen. Learn more about Denyce Graves, Mezzo-Soprano. Though she meets an untimely death at the hands of a discarded lover, this powerful character is immortalized in the operatic cannon defined by her passionate nature, respected for strong will, and remembered for the music that carries her story. Set in 19th century Spain, the opera presents themes of love, jealousy, and free will, as Carmen operates on her own agenda: seductive and intimate on one note, sardonic and hedonistic the next. Displays of crude femininity are augmented by staged knife fights and choruses of smoking cigarette-factory girls. Audiences were taken aback by the female protagonist’s unscrupulous behavior. USA Today identifies her as “an operatic superstar of the 21st century,” and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution exclaims, “If the human voice has the power to move you, you will be touched by Denyce Graves.”īizet’s Carmen was the most famous of the composer’s operas, introducing an unfamiliar element of realism to the form.

Recognized worldwide as one of today’s most exciting vocal stars, Denyce Graves continues to gather unparalleled popular and critical acclaim in performances on four continents. Join the Richmond Symphony for a spectacular final event of their Altria Masterworks series, featuring Mezzo-Soprano Denyce Graves in a concert performance of Bizet’s Carmen (un-staged), in partnership with Virginia Opera. Bizet Carmen (unstaged concert performance).

Carmen opera richmond va