CARMEN. EXODUS

This is one of the most inconsistent and intriguing premieres of the season, which seems to show not only the clean copy of the production, but also its scenic draft copies. Zholdak’s overflowing, confused and often slipshod production possesses, however, quite a distinct thread. Carmen, the director tells us, is the embodiment of eternal love, reborn at different times in different forms. In the production we encounter her present reincarnation. The heroine – bravely, nervously and passionately played by Maria Mironova – lives in a noisy, modern megapolis. By contrast to Prosper Merimée and George Bizet’s heroine, this Carmen does not place freedom above love: she puts them on a par. The best episodes of the production are devoted to the proof of the equality of love and freedom (Zholdak’s Carmen, unlike the Carmen from the short story, remains loyal to Jose). The heroes keep appearing from behind huge cardboard boxes, where film cameras watch them, projecting their close-ups onto screens, underlining how important or dangerous it is to leave the limits of the box.
Zholdak assimilates and reconsiders with the impudence of a neophyte the device of the video-camera, borrowed as a theatrical device from the German cult director Frank Castorff. He bravely mounts a video-projection online with pieces of real cinema, amazingly beautiful à la Paradjanov and documentary-style à la Lars von Trier. This neighbourhood allows Zholdak to strike a fine balance between eternity (an archetypal subject-matter) and the present (the life of Moscow with its brothels, stations, and police stations).