An Arab-Andalusian Carmen by Bizet, Du (2023/2023), Dirigé par Olivier Desbordes

The time that one feels the night passing on a terrace in Marrakech when one hears the incessant stories of the storytellers of the Jemaa el Fna square repeated endlessly, from father to son, from morning to evening, today see you tomorrow... Always this same story of this man seduced by this Andalusian and free woman... It is this time that allowed us to find the tone of this Carmen and to understand that what we had to keep in Bizet was the truth and what had to be removed was the emphasis that wakes up the dreamer and disturbs the storyteller. Oriental music is sung without emphasis, it is a chant of which we do not know the end, it follows the desires… This is how we will try to find by sometimes even changing the way of singing. Our first project to oppose these two cultures, like a confrontation between men, has become a possible marriage between two different artistic expressions... Bizet's music includes Andalusian music, she talks about it, it is this mix that we are going to achieve : to move from one world to another without borders. Loyalty to Bizet is in fact loyalty to artists, that is to say freedom. Bizet made us meet other men, Mérimée taught us curiosity, Andalusian music and the artists make us want to dream up this story, to make it a tale of love and freedom. Olivier Desbordes