Darkness visible: remarkable performances from Jonathan Tetelman & Asmik Grigorian in Bizet’s Carmen directed by choreographer Gabriela Carrizo in Salzburg

Bizet: Carmen – Asmik Grigorian – Salzburg Festival (Photo: Virginia Rota)

Bizet: Carmen; Asmik Grigorian, Jonathan Tetelman, Kristina Mkhitaryan, Davide Luciano, director: Gabriela Carrizo, Utopia Orchestra, conductor: Teodor Currentzis; Salzburg Festival at the Grosses Festspielhaus
Reviewed 8 August 2026

Shorn of dialogue & with an added dance element, this experimental production created a remarkably dark-toned Carmen with fierce undertones leading to an astonishing final scene.

With Carmen, Bizet left us with something of a conundrum. Not that the opera is incomplete, but first off what does Bizet’s final version of the opera consist of? A new edition by Paul Prevost for Bärenreiter publishes all surviving versions of material thus allowing companies to choose. Though it has to be pointed out that Bizet published his own final vocal score of the piece.

Then there is the spoken dialogue. Before his death, Bizet had signed a contract with the Court Opera in Vienna, so he obviously intended to provide sung recitatives. Ernest Guiraud’s recitatives are a workman-like solution to the problem and definitely in character, but what would Bizet have done? The question tantalises. The Opera Comique version of Carmen has a remarkably sympathetic way of modulating between dialogue, melodrama and fully sung, so you can’t help feel Bizet would have had a similarly imaginative solution to creating grand opera Carmen.

Modern day opera companies tend to prioritise Bizet’s own version of the opera with dialogue yet stretches of spoken French remain a challenge.

Bizet: Carmen (Act Two) – Salzburg Festival (Photo: Virginia Rota)

At the Salzburg Festival, a new production of Carmen was entrusted to director and choreographer Gabriela Carrizo, founder of Peeping Tom dance company, and conductor Teodor Currentzis and his Utopia Orchestra. The performance included Currentzis’s Utopia Choir and Bachchor Salzburg with eight members of Carrizo’s Peeping Tom company. Design was by Christof Hetzer, lighting by Tom Visser and sound design by Raphaelle Latini.

Asmik Grigorian was Carmen with Jonathan Tetelman as Don Jose, Kristina Mkhitaryan as Micaela, Davide Luciano as Escamillo, Iveta Simonyan as Frasquita, Anita Monserrat as Mercedes, Matthias Winckhler as Zuniga, Liviu Holender as Morales, Michael Arivony as Le Dancaire, Mingjie Lei as Le Remendado and Amparo Cortés as Lillas Pastia.

With Brussels-based Peeping Tom, Gabriela Carrizo’s artistic practice involves dance and theatre, using hyperrealism and surrealism to reveal characters’ hidden desires and impulses. Carmen seems to have been her first opera and for all the brilliant moments in the staging, you felt she struggled somewhat with the rather fixed nature of the operatic form – this is the score, perform it!

The most controversial decision was to remove the spoken dialogue (something Sally Potter did in her ill-fated Carmen for ENO in 2007), though with such an international cast (Lithuanian, Chilean/American, Armenian, Italian, Russian, British, German, Austrian…) this is understandable in a way. Replacing the dialogue with dance/drama passages using Latini’s sound designs – disturbing tonally – was not altogether successful in filling in the gaps. In the first two acts, you rather had to know the story. Quite what a first time attender made of it, I don’t know. The first time we hear Don Jose, he is singing to Micaela and we never hear Carmen laugh, nor does she taunt Don Jose.

Bizet: Carmen – Salzburg Festival (Photo: Thomas Aurin)

A large result of these changes was to minimise the smaller characters. It was less clear who Frasquite (Iveta Simonyan), Mercedes (Anita Monserrat), Zuniga (Matthias Winckhler), Morales (Liviuo Holender), Le Dancaire (Michael Arivony) and Le Remendado (Mingjie Lei) were. And the more operetta-like elements in the first two acts distinctly receded from view, leaving the work darker and more intense.

At the opening of Act Two, Amparo Cortés (a cante jondo performer from Seville) sang a traditional song as Lilas Pastia, doing so again in Act Three: striking moment but somewhat tonally disturbing in terms of Bizet’s score. In Act Three there was a long sequence for a religious procession to one of Latini’s sound designs (functionally the procession seemed a way for Kristina Mkhitaryan’s Micaela to get on stage). The best element of the change was the space it gave Jonathan Tetelman and Asmik Grigorian to develop their characters in other ways, so that they effectively redefined their relationship using mime in Act Three. By the end of this act, Tetelman’s Don Jose was near feral whilst Grigorian’s Carmen definitely could not care less.

Carrizo’s dance language was gestural, often dance complemented the music and operatic drama. Sometimes these gestures were complex and sometimes not obvious. A pool of water was a strong feature of all three acts. Eurodike De Beul, as Don Jose’s mother, was a near constant presence, though in Act Three why did she strip naked and eventually drown in said water. The opening of that act featured two men with antlers as deer fighting, one of which was chased by the smugglers. And then there was the dancing Christ-like figure during Mkhitaryan’s bit solo as Micaela.

At the opening of Act Two, however, the dance was simply astonishing without a hint of stage Spain. That is a problem with Carmen. Though Bizet’s characters are remarkable, the opera itself is build from gestures that have their origins in the 19th century French image of Spain, not the reality. Here, Carrizo did success in creating something other, and as the opera proceeded her vision developed something very dark indeed.

Bizet: Carmen – Amparo Cortés – Salzburg Festival (Photo: Virginia Rota)

Asmik Grigorian was a soprano Carmen, her middle and lower registers no quite having enough weight in the ensembles in this large theatre with a large orchestra. But this has to be balanced against a remarkably free, unhackneyed musical performance. This was a serious Carmen, we never heard her laugh nor did she rail against men. Her Carmen attracted men but did not use her sexuality as a weapon, there was a freedom and independence to her. The Habanera was beautifully sung, nearly mesmerising. But it was in her interactions with others that the drama really crackled.

Jonathan Tetelman made a near ideal Don Jose. Tall and slim with distinct, if seemingly unconscious, sexual magnetism, his dark-toned tenor found its way around Don Jose’s music with ease and whilst possessed of a ringing top, he also could fine his tone down. In Act One, we missed the dialogue, Don Jose and Carmen’s interactions were limited to gesture and did not quite tell against the busy staging. However, in Act Two, Grigorian’s Carmen developed real bitterness and fierceness. Her Seguidille included plate smashing in lieu of castanets, and for all Tetelman’s sophisticated and moving performance of the Flower Song, it was Grigorian’s fierceness that carried him over.

In Act Three, the card scene looked remarkable with its group of dancing spectres, and Grigorian’s performance mesmerised even though we were aware her lower register did not do what Carmen normally does. Iveta Simonyan and Anita Monserrat also gave fine performances though without dialogue we had little context. But then the scene ended with a near fight between Tetelman’s Don Jose and Grigorian’s Carmen, taking Bizet’s music to a different place.

Bizet: Carmen – Liviu Holender, Kristina Mkhitaryan – Salzburg Festival (Photo: Virginia Rota)

All this set the scene for the final confrontation. Act Four was shorn of its opening chorus and for Don Jose and Carmen’s final encounter there was no dance either. Simply a blood-red set and a roof gradually lowering to seemingly crush them. The encounter was astonishing in its power and freedom, and truth to Bizet’s music. It lifted the whole opera to a remarkable degree.

Davide Luciano made a near ideal Escamillo. In Acts Two and Three he had a dancer double who looked far closer to Toreador physique. But Luciano’s voice did everything needed, a lovely freedom at the top along with enough power in the lower register that the low notes did not threaten to disappear. Kristina Mkhitaryan made a contained yet focused Micaela. Her Act One duet with Tetelman was moving yet serious. Then in Act Three, as a long figure with no dialogue context, she held the stage in her aria to a remarkable degree. This was a Micaela who dared, whilst never seeming to lose her good girl demeanour.

The other characters formed a powerful backdrop. Amparo Cortés’s contributions made a powerful impression even though not musically apposite. Iveta Simonyan and Anita Monserrate created background characters for Frasquita and Mercedes, making the most of both the opening to Act Two and the card scene in Act Three. The men fared less well. Their two bandit compatriots were reduced to bit parts and failed to register properly. Though Mathias Winckhler as the Lieutenant made the most of his moment in Act Two, in the first act neither he nor Liviu Holender’s Morales registered properly.

Bizet: Carmen – Iveta Simonyan, Anita Monserrat, Asmik Grigorian, Michael Arivony – Salzburg Festival (Photo: Thomas Aurin)

The large chorus was a vivid presence throughout. Carrizo tended to use them in blocks so that their simple movements were amplified to a remarkable degree. Vocally they were thrilling too, whilst their physical exuberance in Act Four provided a strong contrast to the emotional intensity to come.

The technique of Carrizo’s dancers was astonishing. At times this served to amplify the drama, but at other times it distracted. Definitely a work in progress. Overall, however, there was a darkness to Carrizo’s vision that cohered, running in an arc from the soldiers vicious mistreatment of a man in Act One to the confrontation between a feral Don Jose and a care less Carmen in Act Four.

As for the edition use, yes there were moments that were different though I suspect few in the audience were susceptible to the subtleties of changes to orchestration and such. Currentzis and his orchestra, however, did create a vivid account of Bizet’s score. From the very upfront sound of the opening notes of the overture, this orchestra was a very demonstrative partner in the mix. And it wasn’t all sound and fury. Despite the fierceness of Currentzis’s approach, there were moments of tenderness and simplicity too.

Tom Visser’s lighting and Christof Hetzer’s sets created some remarkably pictorial stage images, particularly in tandem with the way Carrizo manipulated peripheral characters in silhouette. Hetzer’s abstract set was flexibly yet came into its own in Act Four as it threatened to crush Don Jose and Carmen. Visser’s lighting was highly atmospheric but he and Carrizo seem to have forgotten that opera is a performative art and we like to be able to see a singer’s mouth clearly.

Bizet: Carmen – Asmik Grigorian, Jonathan Tetelman – Salzburg Festival (Photo: Virginia Rota)

The staging was a remarkable experiment. You suspect that Carrizo might have preferred to create a smaller scale work ‘after Bizet’s Carmen‘. But here, her strikingly dark vision of the opera carried weight and complemented Bizet’s music to a remarkable degree, setting the stage for the astonishing final scene from Jonathan Tetelman and Asmik Grigorian.