Carmen

SCENA MŁODYCH

The heroine of Bizet's opera is a dichotomous figure: on one hand, primitive, rebellious, easily classified among fallen women; on the other, a tender victim, susceptible to the whims of fate and the doom hanging over her. By making Carmen a person from the social margins caught up in the criminal underworld, the librettists confined her to a one-dimensional role of traitor and schemer, whose licentiousness drives a naive soldier to crime.

The creators of this production grapple with redefining classical operatic conventions and granting Carmen agency and autonomy. Drawing on the achievements of postdramatic theatre, they attempt to capture the complexity of this story and retell it anew — giving Carmen a voice instead of confining her to operatic arias.

"Carmen's inevitable victimhood provoked us to ask whether there is any escape from the male gaze that turns her into a kind of hedonistic projection. At the centre of our interest are male-female relationships based on toxic, conventional patterns. We seek a solution that would allow Carmen to stop being a victim. One wants to ask: must Bizet's opera always end in tragedy? For now, it seems there is no other way — such a solution is suggested to us by the culture in which we constantly flounder and from which we cannot escape. Carmen is imprisoned in her own identity like a bird in a cage." — Sebastian Róg

direction | script | set design: Sebastian Róg
music | sound design: Dawid Głaz
choreography: Zuzanna Wójciak
assistant director: Antonina Chrustek
arrangement of vocal parts: Julia Chrustek
lighting design: Piotr Świerczek

cast: Antonina Chrustek, Aleksandra Jasica, Małgorzata Korwel, Teresa Miter, Karolina Pędzimąż, Krzysztof Bolechowski, Sebastian Róg

premiere: 23.05.2026
duration: 75 min (no intermission)
age: 16+