Two New Carmens at Charlotte Ballet and Miami City Ballet
The original ballet Carmen, which premiered in 1949 and is based on Prosper Mérimée’s 1845 novella, might be named for its female protagonist, but Carmen is far from the narrative’s driving force. Instead, she’s objectified, coveted by men and ultimately murdered by one who wishes to possess her. In two upcoming adaptations of the ballet, one by Andrea Schermoly for Charlotte Ballet and one by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa for Miami City Ballet, Carmen is transported away from her cigar factory in Spain and placed firmly in the spotlight, no longer a device but a person discovering and using her own power.
Annabelle Lopez Ochoa at Miami City Ballet
At Miami City Ballet, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Carmen runs April 25–27 at the Arsht Center in Miami, then May 3–4 at the Broward Center in Fort Lauderdale. In this version, Ochoa uses a casino for the setting—and Carmen holds all the cards. The ballet is inspired by the 2017 film Molly’s Game, which itself was based on a true story, and in it Carmen catches the attention of the FBI with the high-stakes poker games she runs. “There is one sentence at the end of the movie, where Molly’s father asks her, ‘Why did you get yourself into that position?’ It’s because she wanted to have power over powerful men,” Ochoa says. “I was like, ‘That’s the essence of my Carmen.’ ”
Rather than a literal representation of the casino, the set features an abstract pair of bull horns to symbolize “strength, abundance, destruction, and passion,” says Ochoa, adding that it also happens to evoke the Charging Bull statue in New York City’s Financial District. Dancers interact onstage with oversized dice. Carmen is also tailed by a character Ochoa calls Fate, who wears a type of flamenco skirt called a bata de cola, a golden mask, and horn-shaped protrusions from his hands. The set was designed by Christopher Ash, with costumes by Mark Eric.
Andrea Schermoly at Charlotte Ballet
A casino also serves as the backdrop for Schermoly’s production at Charlotte Ballet, which will run at the Knight Theater in Charlotte, North Carolina May 2–11. Her Carmen emerges at a casino in 1970s Las Vegas, where she dances as a showgirl. A fan of Tarantino’s and Scorsese’s gangster movies, Andrea Schermoly chose Las Vegas to translate the sense of “heightened reality” she heard in Carmen’s famous musical score. “There’s quite a lot of humor already embedded in the music, but there’s also this really dark underbelly,” she says. “Carmen is a hustler, and the Vegas theme lends itself to all sorts of big, ridiculous scenarios, and the parallels of the characters in the story made sense to me.” In this version, one of the men who desires Carmen, Don Jose, becomes a police officer. The other, Escamillo the bullfighter, becomes an Elvis-like figure, complete with a sparkling cape.
Schermoly’s movement hints at the flamenco-inspired choreography of Roland Petit’s 1949 original, but focuses more on contemporary dance, combined with showgirls in heels and even disco. “It becomes a show within a show,” she says. Schermoly’s brother and frequent collaborator, Joe Schermoly, created the sets, and Tom Visser designed the lighting. They sought to make a sleek, modern set, rather than a “Christmas bauble Vegas,” Andrea Schermoly says.
Giving Carmen Agency
Both Ochoa’s and Schermoly’s Carmens face tragic ends in their own ways, but neither choreographer allows her to exemplify the glorification of violence against women onstage.
“I give her more brains and more agency in her life,” says Ochoa. “Her fear is to be possessed, and she wants to be free and have power.”
Schermoly says that she doesn’t want her Carmen to be “a vehicle” for Don Jose’s character. “She’s a force of nature and she’s a well-rounded, interesting woman with dreams of her own,” she says. “She makes choices because she has agency to make those choices. She’s a strong enough character.”
