Carmen

Created in 1875, Georges Bizet’s ‘Carmen’ is the most widely performed French opera in the world. Above all, it’s the music – tender and melancholy, lively and cheerful, and always accessible – that made me want to combine it with my choreography. The challenge is all the more stimulating for me, as I’m going for a counterpoint to this comic opera steeped in collective memory, opting for a pared-down architecture thanks to the lighting created by Alain Paradis. There’s no scenery, just sobriety, inviting the audience to concentrate on the music and dance.

For me, the character of Carmen is not just a fantasized body, desired by men. Above all, she represents freedom. And if, in Georges Bizet’s version, her freedom leads to her death, I find it unbearable to accept Carmen’s feminicide. Men and women are equal, free and united. We are all Carmen.

In a poetic universe shrouded in my oriental origins and perceptions, I want to transpose and reinvent not “a” Carmen, but “some” Carmens. Through my choreographic language, the corps de ballet of the Théâtre de l’Opéra de Tunis brings out the double figures of “Carmencita”, with desire, sensuality and vitality. My choreography, deliberately written in perpetual mass movement, reminds us of the strength of the Mediterranean, uniting the Maghreb & Europe.

Abou Lagraa