Freep: Opera Modo reimagines Carmen via “Orange Is The New Black”
DETROIT, Mich.–Carmen has long been opera’s most liberated woman: a sultry Gypsy cigarette girl who considers her sexual independence a birthright. She can have any man she wants, but she’ll do the picking, thank you. Her credo: Free she was born, and free she will die.
At its heart, Georges Bizet’s masterpiece can be read as an opera about power relationships, about Carmen and the men who would try to define and, ultimately, own her. Now, you know what else is all about power relationships? “Orange Is the New Black” — the hit Netflix series set in a minimum-security prison for women and chronicling the complexities of life among the prisoners and corrections staff. Danielle Wright, executive director of Opera MODO, saw some fundamental links between this unlikely pair, and the light bulb went off over her head. The result is a modern-dress version of “Carmen” opening this weekend that re-sets the opera in a contemporary minimum-security prison.