Impeccable technique and phenomenal energy from the ENB doesn’t quite manage to breathe new life into yet another retelling of Carmen
Johan Inger’s Carmen is performed with impeccable technique and phenomenal energy by English National Ballet. Inger tells this story of the murder of a woman from the perspective of the murderer, Don Jose. The first half is full of brilliance, colour, light and mesmeric dancing, particularly by Minju Kang as Carmen. The stunning costumes by the late David Delfin are a contemporary nod to flamenco, full zips front and back allowing for dresses to be worn in different ways and in a neat reversal, the giant polka dots on the mens’ shirts are typical of flamenco dresses. The second half, when the tragedy unfolds, is a stark monochrome meditation on Jose’s (a virtual solo for Rentaro Nagkaaki) inner world.
The music Bizet wrote for his 1875 opera Carmen is instantly recognisable. It is the basis for a new score by Marc Alavarez which doesn’t disappoint, merging contemporary and classical played with passion and precision by the orchestra under Manuel Coves, employing an unusually wide range of percussive and factory machine sounds. And yet, it has long been a problem, this brilliant music employed to tell the tale of the killing of a woman who won’t do what men want. As Inger has acknowledged, ‘you need a reason to do another Carmen’. It is difficult to elevate the tale, even through dance, a medium to which it lends itself well, above its ambivalence towards cultural anxieties about gender, race, class, sexuality. Inger’s narrative ballet seeks to do just that by telling the story from the perspective of Don Jose. Carmen Carlos Saura’s 1983 dance film Carmen, choreographed in flamenco style, took the same approach.
But Inger doesn’t solve the problem. Focusing on Don Jose’s emotional turmoil, to which the second half is entirely devoted, actually reinforces this ambivalence. We don’t see Carmen’s emotional engagement with her predicament as a factory worker subjected to the attention of every man who encounters her. She doesn’t even have a solo, and as Don José dances his pain relentlessly, the choreography of his agony becomes disengaging. In the end, it is the Torero, danced by Eric Woolhouse, in a Bruno Mars at the Super Bowl solo, who gets our attention and Carmen’s.
These dancers are perfection, both individually and in ensemble. The first act has many moments of pure delight, the sinuous grace of the dancers crafted into Beyonce-style moves (and Beyonce has history with this tale, starring in the film Carmen: A Hip Hopera in 2001). Twerking is the overarching (literally) dance motif of the first act. The soldiers are played as corporate executives. But despite the intention, the relentless virtuosity of the choreography leaves no space for reflection. I wanted more moments where the dancers held the stage with stillness.
The devices that Inger employs to help us think about what’s really at stake here don’t necessarily work. The presence on stage of a child, a witness to the violence, a signal of the consequences of domestic violence and of hope for change, and black clad masked figures, reminiscent of the multiplying agent Smiths in The Matrix, who influence the characters like ghostly puppeteers, are ultimately distracting. The set, nine triangular prisms which are manoeuvred by the dancers, does, to great effect and with elegant economy, transport us to any of the spaces of the narrative, but this is sometimes a bit clunky in the execution, which is a further distraction.
Merimee’s novel, Bizet’s opera, Otto Preminger’s African American musical Carmen Jones, there’s even Paul Mescal as Don Jose in Benjamin Millepied’s 2023 film, Carmen. There is no stopping the story of Carmen, or is it the story of Don Jose? But I was left wanting dancers of this calibre to be given the space and pace of a more meditative reflection on why we can’t leave this tale of femicide alone.
GUEST REVIEWER: Emma Kay