Carmen

A strong corps de ballet and young talented principals were the highlights of the Queensland Ballet’s production of Carmen. Postponed because of the January floods, the ballet has now found a home at the Playhouse where it opened on Saturday to enthusiastic applause.

Artistic Director Francois Klaus’ new ballet version of the original novel by Prosper Merimee has as the program states ‘a flavor of Spain’ but overall lacked the fire and passion generally associated with Spanish dance. Having said that however, within the restrictions of Klaus’ choreography Rachel Walsh gave a convincing portrait of the title role, as did Keian Langdon as Don Jose, Christian Tatchev as Escamillo, Nathan Scicluna as Garcia, and Lisa Edwards as Micaela.

No full-length Carmen ballet score exists, so Klaus used various recorded excerpts of Bizet’s music for the work, some with acoustic guitar, some with orchestra, and even arias from the opera. It was an odd mish-mash of styles which did not always mesh together seamlessly. But one could not fault the work of the young company (the youngest ballet company in Australia), who danced with extravagant commitment.

Peter Pinne    

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