Manchester Theatre News & Reviews

REVIEW - Carlo Acosta's Carmen is a sizzling and seductive sensation!

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We went to the Manchester Opera House to see Carlos Acosta's Carmen. Read what our reviewer Karen Ryder had to say about this wonderful production...

In 2016, one of the world’s greatest dancers Carlos Acosta, retired from the Royal Ballet and set up his own company - Acosta Danza. The vision was to produce dancers who utilise, blend, and fuse Cuban’s dance and musical influences whilst uniting classical and contemporary dance styles to push boundaries and invite the world into new Cuban infused experiences. They have gone on to take the world by storm, producing exquisite and invigorating work such as Nutcracker in Havana and Acosta Danza Evolution. Their Cuban reimagining of Carmen has been wowing audiences and setting theatres alight with its fiery story, and flamenco Cuban-ballet marriage, making this an evening with vast appeal. It has been enticing lovers of dance, theatre, opera, and storytelling alike. Bursting with energy and talent this is an excellent show to appreciate dance as both old and new fans of the art form.

Many know and love Bizet’s Carmen, the tale of a naïve soldier Don Jose who is seduced by the temptress Carmen. Don Jose is so infatuated with Carmen that when she gets into a fight, instead of being duty bound to arrest her, he lets her go and inevitably upturns his life because of it. After losing everything, he finds Carmen, the woman he upended his life for, flirting with the bullfighter Escamillo. Jose becomes obsessed, enraged, fuelled by a never-ending jealousy as he watches his beloved engage with another man. Carmen grows weary of his possessiveness and ends things. Jose is tortured by the cheering of the crowds for his rival Escamillo and so takes drastic action to ensure they can no longer be together. In this Acosta Danza production, we are invited into the story in a cyclic time, beginning at the end and guided through the story by a bull figure, perhaps representing destiny. As this passionate tale unfolds, the Latino inspiration takes hold and you cannot help but be drawn into the mesmerising skill of these phenomenal dancers. The bull pulls the strings, arranging the characters and his story to his whim, using dancers to pull us into a world full of desire, passion and a fine line between love and hate.

Choreographed by Carlos Acosta, the show was first born in 2016 as a one act ballet and has since gone through various transformations, including the involvement of Tim Hatley (set and costumes), Peter Mumford (lighting), Nina Dunn (video designer), Rodion Shchedrin (music arrangement), and Martin Yates, Yhovani Duarte and Denis Paralta (additional music) for this current full length ballet touring production. The tempestuous colour scheme of red and black floods your mind instantly, evoking passion, heat, fire, desire, and it amplifies the dancers storytelling beautifully. A large red circle dominates the stage, a source of temptation that seems to pull the story and characters towards it throughout. Low slung lighting in the bars provide atmosphere, and imposing metal bars are used for a multitude of purposes which allow the space to be continually reimagined and revamped. Projected imagery appears throughout in the centre of the red edged circle that fills the back of the staging, taking us through different locations with ease. Staging is minimal, allowing the dancers to own every inch of it, giving them the freedom of space in which to perform. The second act opens with a red and black freeze frame of dancers, effortlessly chic and cool in an almost Fosse resemblance, dressed in waistcoats, slick and sharp with clean lines. This leads into one of the revamped extensions of the production with the inclusion of additional corps de ballet scenes, and a new solo for Carmen. The tavern scenes were amongst the most rousing, and the dancers themselves appeared to be fully engaged and loving the expression they were afforded.

Carmen was danced by Amisaday Naara with power, ownership and determination from the second she exploded into the music. She owed the stage and everyone on it, and to be honest, everyone in the audience too. She effortlessly switched from being seductive to vulnerable, fiery and passionate to gentle, vigorous and violent to tender and manipulative. She was a work of art. Alejandro Silva was our Don Jose and took us on quite a journey. A strong soldier who initially fought Carmens advances, before he fell under her spell. We watch him fall in love and then be betrayed. We witness his suffering as hurt, jealousy and anguish consume him, and his love turns to something ugly. Again, this requires a performance of opposite ends of the spectrum, starting with fascinated love, ending with obsession. The control and lightness of his jumps were impressive. Escamillo was performed by Paul Brando, with all the pomp and attitude required of this role. Demanding from the off, his presence was felt immediately and completed with powerful dancing. Aniel Pazos was our master of ceremonies with the bull and made sure we knew he was in charge of the story, with strong clean lines, and a strong challenging duet with Carmen. Alexander Arias completed the main cast as Zúñiga and was full of authority, creating tension for Don Jose throughout. The whole cast were stunning, displaying not only world class dance skills but beautiful storytelling. Partner work was glorious, particularly between our love triangle partnerships of Carmen and Don Jose and Carmen and Escamillo. They captured the universal themes that make Carmen so popular, using clever interplay of dance sequences to help them do so. The final duet between Carmen and Jose was pure theatre, fuelled by passion, frustration, life or death energy that fully engaged and used imaginative physical tricks interwoven into the dance to portray their fight. This leads into a piercing and memorable end between the bull, Carmen, Don Jose and Escamillo, with dramatic imagery. The fusion of dance styles is ever present, more dramatically so in the second act where we see a blend of flamenco, Cuban ballet, traditional Cuban folk dance, and Latino rhythmic hip movements.

I have been excited to see how the blend of flamenco in both dance and music would sit within Carmen and I think it is a brilliant success. The flamenco blend feels so natural once you’ve seen it, especially during the bar scene, where the energy and dancing is relentlessly intoxicating. The timing is exquisite, the ensemble work and trust between the dancers plain to see. It captures the energy so we too feel the heat, the passion, the fun, the carefree lives of these friends. They bang their fists rhythmically on the tables, they make beer bottles dance and fly through the air, and as the dancing, cheering, exuberant energy builds, we get caught up in the atmosphere created. There are also moments of silence, a pause as the music politely gives us a second to catch our breath and keep up with this fast-paced intoxicating love triangle. Other stand out moments include the rope work during the prison scenes, symbolic, captivating, intrinsically timed. It brings a new dynamic of cruelty and control, delving further into the complex themes and relationships within Carmen.

Reimagining a story with as much global respect as Carmen is no easy task and with some of the most recognisable operatic music courtesy of Bizet, it has vast appeal beyond any opera house. It is a risk, but that is what Acosta Danza are all about, and they have found a fresh new outlook on this much-loved classic. Framing this as a story that fate has already decided upon with the introduction of the bull at the beginning, opens doors that haven’t been previously seen and allows us to be both fully absorbed whilst simultaneously hover above these complex relationships and gain new perspective. This is an exciting, alluring exploration of how different art forms and dance styles can co-exist as one.

WE SCORE CARLOS ACOSTA'S CARMEN...