Of all the productions I have written about over the seven years of this series, to say nothing of (I scour the memory bank in vain) those of several earlier decades, this has come the closest to complete separation of eye and ear: its stage world cannot conceivably have generated this music, and Bizet’s music cannot have evoked this stage world. And it is unrelievedly ugly to look at. With this Carmen, the Met has hit what we must hope is rock bottom.

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NEXT TIME: I will again be taking a hiatus from blog duties over the summer. But sometime during that season, I will be publishing the essay on acting in opera that has been in progress for a while, and will announce the first post of the 2024-25 season at that time. Till then, a restorative summer to all.

CLO