CARMEN Closes Seattle Opera’s 2025-26 Season
Grammy winners J'Nai Bridges and Sasha Cooke star in CARMEN at McCaw Hall from May 2-17.
Seattle Opera will conclude its 2025/26 season with Carmen, Georges Bizet's flashy tale of seduction, jealousy, and rage. Perhaps the most popular opera ever written, Carmen has enthralled audiences for 150 years with its combination of infectious music and dramatic action, embodied in an iconic protagonist who has become synonymous with opera itself. Carmen returns to Seattle Opera from 2019 that showcases the best of what opera has to offer. Performances run May 2-17.
“Carmen is one of those operas that people always love coming back to,” said General and Artistic Director James Robinson, whose directorial debut at Seattle Opera was a Carmen in 2004 that sold more tickets than any opera in company history. “One thing that makes it special is that it can mean so many different things to different people. It's a rich and nuanced work that rewards your close attention and repeated hearings. Add in some of the most wonderful music in all of opera and it's no wonder that Carmen is bucket-list item for every opera-goer.”
The opera tells the story of the clever and headstrong Carmen, a factory worker and smuggler who is irresistible to every man she meets and never fails to get what she wants. When she draws the affections of the impetuous soldier Don José, his love grows into a dangerous obsession and he forsakes his duty, his family, and his future to control Carmen at all costs.
Cast and Creative Team
Sharing the title role are a pair of world-renowned, Grammy-winning mezzo-sopranos: Tacoma native J'Nai Bridges, in her first fully staged production at Seattle Opera, and former Seattle Opera Young Artist Sasha Cooke, in her role debut.
For Bridges, the debut is a chance to give back to the community that made her into the star she is today. “I have been fortunate enough to sing Carmen all around the world, but this will be the most special Carmen I've ever sung because I get to bring it home,” said Bridges, who made her Seattle Opera debut in the concert presentation of Samson and Delilah in 2022. “My journey as an artist began here in the Pacific Northwest and my support system is still here. There is no audience in the world that makes me feel more loved, and I know that with their support and positive energy this will be my best Carmen yet.”
For Cooke, singing Carmen is the culmination of a career's worth of preparation, and a bucket-list experience of its own. “What a time to be stepping for the first time into this role, this confident woman who is at peace with her fate and yet is destroyed by the time in which she lived,” said Cooke, who last appeared at Seattle Opera in Hansel and Gretel ('16). “I have a lot to learn from Carmen in terms of embracing my own womanhood and standing fearlessly for what I believe in, so I'm excited for this opportunity to live in this role. At the same time, I'm glad to be taking on this challenge now, having loved Carmen all my life, when I have the benefit of my own lived experience to draw on.”
Joining Bridges and Cooke in the leading roles are five Seattle Opera debuts: tenors Matthew Cairns and Ryan Capozzo as the possessive soldier Don José, baritones Christian Pursell and Benjamin Taylor as the swaggering bullfighter Escamillo, and Kathleen O'Mara as the devoted young woman Micaëla. Also making their company debuts are baritone Navasard Hakobyan as El Dancairo, tenor Daniel O'Hearn as Remendado, and soprano Meredith Wohlgemuth as Frasquita, as well as dancers Amber Janelle Brown, Julia Lilly, Ben Swenson-Klatt, and Kit Wyatt. Returning to Seattle Opera are baritone Darren Drone (Edmund Watkins, Jubilee '24) as Zuniga, baritone Ilya Silchukou (First Shepherd, Daphne in Concert '26) as Moralès, and mezzo-soprano Melody Wilson (Gaea, Daphne in Concert '26) as Mercédès.
Seattle Symphony Conductor Emeritus Ludovic Morlot, returning for his first fully staged production since Das Rheingold in 2023, will lead 56 members of the Seattle Symphony along with the 40-member Seattle Opera Chorus and 16-member youth chorus, prepared by Chorus Master Michaella Calzaretta and Youth Chorus Master Julia Meyering.
The production, co-produced with Irish National Opera and Opera Philadelphia, is directed and choreographed by Paul Curran, who made his Seattle Opera debut to great acclaim with this production in 2019. Curran is joined by a creative team of Set & Costume Designer Gary McCann, Lighting Designer Paul Hackenmueller, Associate Lighting Designer Connie Yun, Fight Director Geoffrey Alm, and Wigs, Hair, and Makeup Manager & Designer Ashlee Naegle.
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