Opera Columbus Opens 42nd Season With CARMEN

Opera Columbus’ 42nd season will open next month with a sleek and stylish production of Bizet’s Carmen. Featuring some of opera’s most famous melodies including the stirring habanera “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle” and the jaunty “Toreador March,” Carmen will grace the Southern Theatre stage on Sept. 29 and Oct. 1 alongside the Columbus Symphony Orchestra. 

The new production, directed by 2022-2023 Crane Directing Fellow Sarah Dahnke   and music directed by Dr. Everett McCorvey, will take action from its original setting in mainland Seville to the sultry and sizzling island of Ibiza. With a libretto by Ludovic Halévy and Henri Meilhac, Carmen follows the femme fatale as she seduces and rebuffs the naïve Don José, embodying the fickleness of love she sings about in her habanera.  

Dahnke’s streamlined production will invite audiences to interpret the opera’s themes through a contemporary lens.  

“The way Carmen’s themes speak to the current cultural moment really highlights how timeless so many of these issues are,” said Dahnke. “But now, we’re able to talk more openly about things like sexual freedom, class systems and social hierarchy, and intimate partner violence. Using opera as a way of helping people to think critically about these significant issues can only inspire even more conversation in the public sector.”  

Tesia Kwarteng will lead the cast of Opera Columbus veterans as Carmen, with Adam Diegel as Don José, Richard Ollarsaba as Escamillo, and Hannah Bullock as Micaela. Kwarteng recently completed a run in the Broadway revival of Camelot, having previously been featured at The Metropolitan Opera in Hamlet and Fire Shut Up In My Bones.  

Another featured performer at the Metropolitan Opera, Adam Diegel was most recently seen at Opera Columbus as Cavaradossi in 2021’s Tosca. This season, Ollarsaba will bring his Escamillo to the Glimmerglass Festival, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, and Portland Opera in addition to Columbus. No stranger to Opera Columbus audiences, Bullock was recently featured in the 2022-23 season’s Rigoletto, and the new production of Vanqui that capped the 2021-22 season’s 40th anniversary celebration. 

 Opera Columbus invites audience members to arrive early and become immersed in the world of Carmen with pre-show activities ranging from tarot card readings to a bourbon bar.