The pent-up emotions of the audience are released loudly at this premiere. It is part of the usual ritual that a silly direction like the brightly colored new “Carmen”, which director Herbert Fritsch presents to the Hamburg State Opera at the season opener, drives the audience crazy. Especially since Fritsch’s staging gets stuck in the three Spanish clichés that she tries to present quite unimaginatively. However, it is unusual for a musical interpretation to so upset the listeners as if they had been expected of a highly dissonant world premiere instead of Bizet’s popular long-running hit “Carmen”. Even before the break goes to the young, Israeli-American conductor Yoel Gamzou down a storm of boos and bravos. His pointed, extreme interpretation of a work that everyone thinks they know is divisive.
In fact, you can hear the “Carmen” music like new that evening. Because Yoel Gamzou succeeds in a thrilling way where Fritsch fails: he uncovers the dazzling wealth of expression in this work, which tells of courage to die and the power of Eros, of the burning will to live, of the unconditional urge for freedom and of the sexual self-determination of an extraordinary woman, freeing it from the clichéd perspective of the voyeuristic flamenco tourist, finds an existential intensity. It starts with the orchestral sound, whose color mixtures Gamzou fans out in a multifaceted way, instead of drowning the many different nuances in a fat string sound.
Anything sweetly kitschy gives way to a clear view
Equally pointed, full of surprising contrasts and flexibility, are the tempi, which Gamzou has carefully eavesdropped on the changing layers of expression. Even the march of the prelude begins with a speed and drive that lifts the listener from their seats, only to then unfold an almost spatial scenery through vivid changes in tempo and colour. In general, one seldom hears how ingeniously Bizet allows his score to oscillate between genres and styles. There is an almost operetta-like lightness alongside lyrical and highly dramatic expressions, virtuoso ensemble numbers and melodramas accompanied by soloists. This whole sensuous fullness of character unfolds under Gamzous beyond all showmanship an unexpected liveliness and scenic suggestiveness. Anything sweetly kitschy or thunderously stamping gives way to a clear view of harmonious and dynamic arches.
Herbert Fritsch announced before the premiere that he distrusts the concept of freedom associated with “Carmen” because it has long since been hollowed out. The potential for freedom and emancipation still contained in this wonderful score could be experienced on this evening. Yoel Gamzou unleashed it. He didn’t do the flamenco tourists any favours. But both sides have to put up with it.