SARA BARAS PRESENTS ‘CARMEN’ IN MADRID
“We treat ‘Carmen’
with all the
freedom the character deserves”
Silvia Calado. Madrid, February 11th, 2009
Translation: Joseph Kopec
Over a year ago, Sara Baras set
herself a challenge: to do a totally different version of
‘Carmen’. And she hasn’t just been up
to the task, but has seen her dream come true. “She’s
a character I’ve wanted to play since I was a little
girl; in fact, I think I dedicated my life to being a bailaora
after seeing ‘Carmen’ by Antonio Gades and Carlos
Saura”, the Cádiz-born artist explains. She
was sure that some day she would play the role of the Sevillian
cigarette girl, but “what I didn’t know was
that I was going to direct it”. And she was encouraged
to do so by playwright Fernando Nieva, seeing the love she
felt for the character. The show, which premiered at the
Liceo in Barcelona in September 2007, reaches the Teatro
Lope de Vega in Madrid, where it will make a stopover beginning
on February 12th, 2009, already a guaranteed hit. As Sara
Baras herself announced at the press conference, “over
30,000 advance tickets have been sold”. And that,
she admits, causes her “as much responsibility as
satisfaction”.
Sara Baras (Photo
Daniel Muñoz) |
|
Before the crowd in Madrid, she is going
to display that different version of Merimée’s
work, in which she tries to approach “ ‘Carmen’
as a woman of today and as a normal woman; here you can
tell that what happens to her might happen to any woman”.
As Sara Baras explains, “the wardrobe, staging, lighting
and choreography have nothing to do with the previous versions
of ‘Carmen’; there are no knives, fights or
tobacco, but rather something really elegant, really focused
on feelings”. And she points out that in her ‘Carmen’
“her neckline isn’t important, but rather her
baile and her heart”. About her, she highlights “her
attitude as a woman, her right to choose”. So she
is based “not on her era, but on this era; therefore,
the way of directing her is different. We skip the typical
script and treat ‘Carmen’ with all the freedom
the character deserves”. To which bailaor Luis
Ortega, who plays Don José, adds that “we’ve
based ourselves, more than on two different men, on two
different ways of loving”.
To strengthen those feelings, the show
plays with tri-color symbolism. “Black is elegance
and seriousness, red is for passion and white gives the
idea of purity, of cleanliness, of not wanting to loop the
loop”, the bailaora says. That triad is applied to
the stage design, “which is quite a bit more complicated
than in previous shows; we even use projections, although
the vision perceived by the audience is equally clean”.
Other ingredients to point out include the “lovely
wardrobe” by designer Sybilla and the lighting by
Fernando Martín, who “has a different way of
lighting; he has rhythm, he nearly dances with us, and so
he doesn’t just help to create a climate, but he helps
us to express more easily”.
Flamenco and Spanish
Sara Baras presents
'Carmen' (Photo Daniel Muñoz) |
|
The core of the show, of course, is baile.
“The dancing is flamenco - she forcefully affirms
- but there are flashes and details of Spanish dance”.
And to that end, she says she has “one of the best,
Luis Ortega, who I consult when putting together the choreography
in order to make a smooth mix, without unevenness”.
Both styles are treated with that air that’s “a
little more contemporary” of the company, which moves
around a dance corps of ten dancers for this show, “very
prepared and united now”.
Of course, the baile wouldn’t be
anything without the music. And this show favors a unique
encounter: that of flamenco with classical music. The musical
director is Madrilenian guitarist David Cerreduela, who
commands the group playing live flamenco which consists
of guitarists José María Bandera, Mario Montoya
and José Carlos Gómez, cantaores Miguel de
la Tolea, Saúl Quirós and Brenda García,
violinist José Amador Goñi and percussionist
Antonio Suárez. And they have before them the challenge
of performing music by Paco
de Lucía live. As Baras relates, “at first
he was going to adapt a melody by Bizet, but in the end
we decided to seek out the most flamenco Paco, we wanted
to treat ourselves to having something of his which, just
like ‘Carmen’, was age-old. I would have loved
to dance to ‘Entre dos aguas’, but it got a
little bit away from the show, so we chose to adapt the
tangos ‘La Cañada’ for the pas-de-deux
between Carmen and The Bullfighter”. And she thanks
the performers for their courage; “I know it’s
hard for them to play something by the maestro live, but
they’re really professional”. Besides, as guest
bailaor José
Serrano points out, “all guitarists like doing
a piece by Paco, but like here, a reason has to come about”.
Joining Paco de Lucía’s piece
are “details from Bizet’s opera, recorded live
by the Orquesta del Liceo de Barcelona, directed by Joan
Valent and with Ara
Malikian as solo violinist”, the show’s
director specifies. All the rest are new compositions such
as, for example, “the soleá by José
Carlos Gómez, a beauty; it’s the pas-de-deux
between Luis and me”. The piece is part of the first
of three acts which the show is structured into, the one
dealing with the feelings between the main character and
Don José. The second one deals with Carmen and Escamillo.
And then the third one, as she points out, “is about
her and her decision, which costs her her life but affirms
her courage in defending her feelings”.
It is precisely that bold attitude which
makes Sara Baras identify so much with her version of ‘Carmen’.
“We show our courage as a private company, maintaining
a commitment to our culture”, she remarked. In conclusion,
she said “that struggle is what makes us dream and
believe in what we’re doing”. And she thus faces
a season in which she has been simultaneously touring with
‘Sabores’, her face-off with tenor José
Carreras, and ‘Carmen’, which will be followed
by the revival of ‘Juana la Loca’. A very complete
agenda which logically has not allowed Sara Baras time to
think about the next female character she will play.
