Welcome Students and Teachers to Opera Online!! Students in the Opera Company of Philadelphia's Sounds of Learning program saw the final dress rehearsal of Bizet's Carmen on Wednesday, September 28th, 2011 at the Academy of Music.
Now that you've studied the opera and seen it, what were your impressions? Tell us what you think and post your reviews here! Did you like the opera? Why or why not? Who was your favorite character and why? Did you like the costumes and the sets? Who was your favorite singer? Which singer had the best and most impressive singing voice?
Your review should be at least 50 words or more. Please include your first name, school and grade in your post. Don't forget to support your opinion!
While you are writing your reviews we have one last Carmen video clip! As you have seen over the past few weeks the music from Carmen has inspired many musician and artist. This last clip is of a violin concerto that was created using Bizet's inspiring music. The "Fantasy on Carmen" by Pablo de Sarasate is considered one of the most challenging violin pieces ever created. You can see why from this performance by world famous violinist Sarah Chang. The orchestra is conducted by the famous opera tenor and conductor, Placido Domingo.
Opening Night Philadelphia! 
Want to see Carmen again? On September 30, at 8 PM the Opera Company of Philadelphia is hosting a free, public simulcast of the opening night of Bizet’s Carmen at the historic Independence Hall. Come listen to world-class opera in Philadelphia's most iconic public places. Bring a blanket and a pinic and join us for opening night under the stars! Click here to register and learn more about this performance!
Comments
For Carmen I did visual arts. I liked how they made the background crowded with people. They also made costumes different for each scene. The characters were changing their hair and make up to change with the scenes. The other people had different clothes to show different religions. Carmen especially changed after many scenes like she could be lively one scene and dull the next. In the bullfight arena they had words on the wall. That is the visual elements I saw
Visual Arts
The setting of Carmen changed every intermission. The setting was very beautiful. It seemed to have lots of colors and even the time of day in the background. The setting of the bar was darker and duller. The last setting in Act 4 was much brighter and more vibrant. Most scenes were bright and hooking. There were a lot of positive areas in each scene. There was mostly straight lines in all scenes. The texture in Act 1 looked like it was very rough. The 3D art was professional and interesting.
The opera, Carmen was a beautiful opera. For Carmen I chose to look at the dance and movement arts. Carmen was a mostly locomoter opera because they were always moving. The opera was smooth and at some parts very tense. The singers were everywhere. Some were high on the tables and some were low on the ground. They were using the whole stage and moving everywhere. The time was slow and relaxed with little emphasis.
My class recently saw the opera “Carmen” by George Bizet. My teacher told us to focus on one element throughout the opera and I chose the musical element. This opera had a HUGE amount of music in it (like any other opera) because the whole thing was in song. I really liked the story and music of this opera too. My favorite song was “Habanera”.
I have recently seen the opera Carmen. It was a great opera and now I will do a review of the music elements of Carmen. The music in Carmen really set the scene. It described what was going on and described it well. The music varied throughout the show with ups and downs really getting a feel for the story. My favorite song was “Habanera”. Overall the music in the Opera was very good and also very emotional.
The Costumes in Carmen are relevant to the time period that George Bizet composed it in. The soldiers are dressed in gray, long boots, and long white pants and guns and swords. They remind me of the British soldiers from pirates of the Caribbean. I thought the costumes that the gypsies wore were a bit too colorful, considering gypsies were usually poor. Carmen is dressed in a beautiful red and white dress. I think it really suits her character. The smugglers were wearing bright bandannas and sloppy clothing and uncouth hair. Escamillo, the bullfighter is sporting an amazing robe decorated to suit his profession he has a slick haircut, something that must have taken a while in the dressing room. And, he also has a classic bullfighters’ sword, obviously used for torturing and killing the poor animal.
The set is amazing in detail to the environment and the area. For example, there were crates and hay outside the cigarette factory and snow and makeshift tents in the mountains where the gypsies set up camp. It was obviously the same basic set, but the way they changed it in small detail was incredible. I especially liked the tavern scene because of the table and the food. It really set the restaurant feel. I thought the visual arts for the opera Carmen were amazing. I would rate it a 5 out of 5.
Carmen, the opera, was much different then you would expect. The literacy elements seemed much different in the libretto than the real opera. The plot seemed much more organized than it seemed in the opera over the libretto. In the libretto, Don Jose seemed much more villainous- you just have to feel for him a little. Carmen seemed brave-she stood up to Don Jose in the wake of death, and Zuniga, going to jail. The conflict felt much better weaved in the opera than the libretto, as it had support of the other elements, not found in the libretto. The climax was truly a change- Carmen hates Jose and loves Escamillo. Unfortunately, there’s no solution. Even though many operas have love stories, Carmen is the needle in the haystack.
The musical part of the opera Carmen helped create extra empathies. The emotion on stage was amplified by the music, because of the way the music matched up with the emotions. It also helped to create some suspense. The suspense did keep you on the edge of your seat. But had the tempo been faster, the suspense would be higher, as the tempo of the music plays a tremendous part in the suspense. The over all excitement was big, and the talent and professionalism of the musicians blew me away. The energy level of the music just amazed me. Without the music, Carmen wouldn’t be where it is today. The music matched what was happening on stage and even gave you little hints when something bad was going to happen. Over all the music of Carmen was amazing.
There are a lot of movement arts in Carmen. For example, dancing.
The dancing has either a slow, fast or medium tempo. In Carmen there
are a lot of different dances in mostly every other scene. Each of them
have a different tempo or “speed”. One of the dances in Carmen only
used a small table top. Another one used the whole entire stage! And
some people dance in one place. Also dancing can have different rhythms
and beats. Those are some of the movement arts of Carmen.
Musical Arts
Carmen had a lot of the elements of music, I chose this art because there was instruments, and lots of singing. There was tempo when the people such as Carmen were singing. Rhythm, harmony, and melody would also go into the category of actors/actresses singing. There were also lyrics to the song, which the actors/actresses had to learn. Notes were including in making the song and for the people below playing the instruments. For dynamics the music and singing was very loud. Some parts were also quiet. It depended on how the singer’s emotion was at the time. I enjoyed listening to all of the different types of music from the Opera it was interesting how loud these singer’s voices could be! Thank you for putting together this opera!!
In Carmen most of the play is singing. Instead of talking most of the time, they sang. That is how they expressed themselves. I think in most of the songs the tempo was pretty slow. But the beats were also fast. Like, in some parts of the song it would be pretty fast for about two seconds without a break. And then in other parts it was really slow. I think the tempo definitely varied in Carmen. Although most of the measured beats were pretty slow with long breaks. So my review of Carmen and the tempo are, it was very interesting and the tempo and Carmen was great and really planned out.
Adena Rothbard
Carmen
Last Wednesday, I saw the Opera Company of Philadelphia’s Production of “Carmen.” I very much enjoyed it. I thought the singing was beautiful, the acting was marvelous, the orchestra was phenomenal and the dancing was astounding but I chose to really look at and analyze visual arts. The first you saw when they opened up the curtain was the scenery. The scenery was beautiful. The stone buildings represented the time period well. The shutters that were blocking off the neighborhood from the smoking factory was torn which represent that they lives in a dangerous neighborhood filled with criminals, smugglers, and gypsies which in the eye of the public were witches. The set changes were seamless from Seville to Lillas Pastias to the mountains to the bullfight the set was exceptional. My last is costumes. Mean wore pants and shirts. Carmen changed outfits every act. For most of the time she wore flowing skirts with a tight fitting corset and top which made up a dress that most women in this production wore. They varied in colors. At the end Carmen wore a beautiful black headdress. I really loved this production of Carmen.
Claire Ochroch
CD- BCMS
In Carmen there is a lot of dancing involved. The dance moves used feet, hips, and hands. This means the dance moves were locomotor. The flamenco moves were smooth at some points and sharp at others. Not much space was being used during the dances. The actors and actresses stayed in a tiny bit of space making it easier to watch them all at once. I noticed that they moved in many directions such as forward, backward, sideways, up, and down. Carmen and the townspeople all danced in different ways depending on the music. For example, when the music was slow, they danced slow and calm. When the music was fast the dance moves were fast.
In the opera Carman the dancers use their whole body to express how they feel. The actors can tell you exactly how they feel. They use facial expressions, gestures and body movement. They fit their dances to the tempo of the music. The actors try to explain how they feel and what they’re saying. For me it was difficult to understand, but they helped me by using gestures. The actors could go from dancing fast to dancing slow in just seconds. There was a lot going on so movement would let you know who was talking. Overall there was a lot of movement involved in the opera.
The opera, Carmen was beautiful and terrific. The actor’s voices were simply splendid and the dynamics of the songs were very upbeat and moving to to me and my class. I also loved the Orchestra and how the instruments nicely complemented the singers and actors. I can’t believe that these singers can project their voices that loud into the audience! Also, the melody and harmony were very fast and sow at times. I also noticed that the dances go with the songs and with the score. The tempo’s of the songs also depended on the actors actions. The actor that played Carmen, was fantastic and projected her voice very loud and I still can’t believe that they are that loud without microphones. the opera singers voices are very low and intense. I learned that it takes a very long time to prepare for a opera. And, it takes along time to study and master opera singing.
The amount of drama in the performance was just the right amount. The actors did an amazing job at displaying the love between Don Jose and Carmen. The opera was extremely emotional and you could really feel all of the love, hate, violence, and passion in the actors’ faces and body language. Carmen goes through a lot of mood swings, and I personally think that Rinat Shaham did a good job at controlling them to make them look as if Carmen really loves someone or hates someone else. All of the child actors were good at not making the part where all the run off the stage screaming, into just kids screaming. What I mean by that is in real when you run away you wouldn’t flail your arms and have a blank expression; you would run as fast as you can with a scared expression. On Don Jose’s part, it honestly looked like he was a little crazy and really needed Carmen to be with him. I also thought Escamillo was a bit crazy because as soon as his
Character came on stage he was drinking and kissing all of the women. Machala’s character was very sweet and it’s a shame that Carmen stole Don Jose from her. Over all I think the theatrical arts were fantastic!
For my Carmen review I decided to do the elements of music. There were many different kinds of music in the opera. I thought that the actual music was soft so the single voice was magnified. I personally am not familiar with categorizing music but I know that it’s not rock, pop, hip-hop, or rap. Under instruments I think I saw all the string instruments. I also think I saw a cymbals, wood blocks, oboe and a trumpet. I can’t think of anything else because I didn’t go down to the orchestra pit, I’m judging by what I saw from the balcony. The lyrics were hard to understand because it was in french. Just my opinion why are there operas in english? What is the point of listening if you can’t understand them, if you watch the words above you can’t watch the words you can’t watch the expressions. I really think they should make an opera in english. Lastly, the chorus is sung by the other characters like villagers.
I did literary arts. I personally enjoyed the opera; there were a few things that were okay and others that were great. Let me explain my views. I personally thought the plot was a little weak. I didn’t think a plot involving a gypsy and a solider could work well together and I don’t think the opera changed my mind about that. I think Bizet’s theme was that other people couldn’t control people. In Carmen examples of that are the lyrics she uses for the Habanera and when she tells Don Jose she was born free and will die free. I enjoyed the climax where Don Jose turns from a solider into a smuggler and the conflict when Don Jose and Carmen exchange words. The characters were great in my opinion because they all had clear-cut personalities. The resolution was a little bit sad and kind of reminded me of Romeo and Juliet. All in all, I thought this opera was very good.
visual art-
I liked how the scenery looked as like a real building.It was nice how they changed the scenery every intermission and the costumes were authentic all the clothes looked different looked and the bull Fighters had the fanciest clothes they where brightly colored and decorated.
Those are some of the visual arts of Carman.
The opera used a medium amount of space of space I would say about 50by20 square ft. The set was the same all the way through except for some props (ex. Tents). Most of the dances did not use up much space. A lot of Characters were on stage a lot and they took up the most space.
you asked for 10 sentences i gave you 10 sentences
Carmen had a lot interesting movement and dances. There was Spanish influence in the dance, the performers were very locomotor. They used their entire body to enhance the performance. The performers had a platform so that they could use two levels and maximize their space. The energy level varied, sometimes it was smooth and sometimes it was tense. The performers were looking at the audience or cheating to them. The speed varied throughout the opera.
The amount of drama in the performance was just the right amount. The actors did an amazing job at displaying the love between Don Jose and Carmen. The opera was extremely emotional and you could really feel all of the love, hate, violence, and passion in the actors’ faces and body language. Carmen goes through a lot of mood swings, and I personally think that Rinat Shaham did a good job at controlling them to make them look as if Carmen really loves someone or hates someone else. All of the child actors were good at not making the part where all the run off the stage screaming, into just kids screaming. What I mean by that is in real when you run away you wouldn’t flail your arms and have a blank expression; you would run as fast as you can with a scared expression. On Don Jose’s part, it honestly looked like he was a little crazy and really needed Carmen to be with him. I also thought Escamillo was a bit crazy because as soon as his
Character came on stage he was drinking and kissing all of the women. Machala’s character was very sweet and it’s a shame that Carmen stole Don Jose from her. Over all I think the theatrical arts were fantastic!
I thought that overall Carmen was a wonderful opera, and the libretto was very interesting. I did musical elements for Carmen. I thought that the overall structure and form was good. There was a lot of good planning in the opera. The rhythm of the piece was suited to the opera well. You could really feel the rhythm in the song. The tune, otherwise known as melody was nicely fit to the opera. The harmony really fit in well with the melody. It made a very nice sound. The dynamics of the piece was great. The volume wasn’t too soft, which established a pretty good mood for the piece. The tempo was at a nice speed for the piece. It wasn’t too fast or too slow. I also heard a lot of timbre in the opera. You could really distinguish the different pitches of the instruments.
When I went to see the Opera Carmen, I was blown away. The actors were amazing. They were not wearing microphones, yet, I heard the actors clearly from the back of the balcony.
I was asked to focus on the music of the opera. It was a bit of a challenge because everything was in song, and it was sung in French. In Carmen’s first song when she is singing “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle”, the melody is quick and bouncy. The song is that way because she is teasing the men about her love. In the song “En vain pour `eviter les r`epones am`eres”, the dynamic of the song is very dark and mysterious because Carmen is singing about death. In the song “Les tringles des sistres tintaient” the tempo is very fast and sudden. The song is that way because Carmen just started to sing out of nowhere.
This opera is very captivating because you can just feel the emotion when the actors sing. The music is so beautiful, you don’t have to understand the words to fall in love with this opera.
Zaria 8th grade Lingelbach
Nate
8th Grade
Lingelbach School
By, jadie 8 grade Lingelbach ele.
My favorite character was the person who played Zuniga (or at least I think it was Zuniga) because he looked like my uncle Paul, also because he was funny. My favorite part was when Carmen was arrested.
Steven,8th grade, from Lingelbach school.
Nia, 8th grade, Lingelbach
Jasmine
Anna L. Lingelbach, 8th grade
Love. In my opinion, the most important word in the opera. The word that describes everyone’s emotions; how Carmen thought that she might have felt toward Don José, how Don José felt toward Carmen because of one flower, how Micäela felt toward Don José. Carmen’s entire plot was centered around love. The exposition was when Carmen threw a flower at Don José, which caused him to fall in love with her. However, after a short while, we hit the climax. Carmen decided that he was too loyal to the military, and she decided that unless Don José would abandon the military and become a gypsy with her, she wouldn’t love him. Carmen then fell in love with Escamillo, a bullfighter. The Opera ended with the resolution, where Don José stabs Carmen, which kills her, because he is so angry that she doesn’t love him anymore. The protagonist was Carmen, the mysterious gypsy girl who the men are all in love with, and the antagonist was Don José, who had a lot of Man vs. Man conflict with Carmen. Don José argued with Carmen over whether or not their love would continue, before he murdered her. Those two characters caused lots of drama and romance, not to mention an unforgettable experience to the opera.
In the opera Carmen there is a lot of movement. There is lots of movement in Carmen it uses movement to tell expressions. Once when Carmen was angry who could tell because she was stomping her feet madly. You could tell even before the bullfighting scene started that it was a bullfight because it had people cheering in something that looked like bleachers and from the cheering. You could also tell where you were by the people and objects around. You could also tell the mood by the pace and type of the movement. Someone would move slow and maybe give an evil little smile if they were about to do something bad or trick someone. Most of the time you can tell what is happening but sometimes the characters mess with your mind. Carmen in my mind was the most confusing character because she just looks mysterious. This is what I saw of movement in the opera.
This was a beautiful last scene. The connection with the bullfight and the "bullfight" between Don Jose and Carmen was brilliantly portrayed in this devastating last scene. I loved the opening scene of the market in front of the arena with all the merchants selling goods and preparing for the stunning Escamillo! The costumes and scenery were so detailed and it just added a great part of the experience of the opera. I was so fortunate to see the rehearsal on Thursday, the day before the opening and all the actors and musicians had an outstanding performance. Thank you Philadelphia Opera Company.
Glorimar
Maru
My favorite part of Carmen was when Don Jose was singing with the other soldiers. I hated the ending! If I could change it I would have had Escamillo save Carmen and fight Don Jose to the death. Then Carmen would be at peace.
When I finally felt brave enough to look down I got kind of upset because they killed Carmen. I wish that part could be changed, I mean you don't just kill someone because they don't love you anymore! My favorite character was Carmen, but I wanted to jump onto the stage when Don Jose killed her!
My favorite character was Carmen, because it was funny when she left Jose. My least favorite was Jose. He killed Carmen all because she didn't want to get back with him. I would change the ending and let Carmen live and escape Don Jose. Carmen could tell the cops & Jose would get locked up.
My favorite character would have to be Micaela. She has a lovely voice and dressed beautifully. Like most people, my least favorite character was Carmen.Carmen was like a mean stuck-up witch! I would have ended the opera with Don Jose dying with Carmen since they both loved each other.
Hang T.
My favorite part was when Carmen died. This was my favorite part because she kissed so many men. My favorite character was Don Jose because he killed her and I think she deserved to be killed. I would have ended Carmen differently by forgiving Carmen and letting her live.
Charles H.
Juniata Park Academy
Some of the things I didn't like was that it took to long to get to the point. I didn't like that Carmen was such a slut and was kissing almost all of the guys. Other thanb that, it was good and I wouldn't mind going on another class trip like Carmen again!
Sierra
Juniata Park Academy
For Carmen I did the musical arts. I thought the musical elements were exquisite. Really the overall production was amazing, but something about the musical elements in the opera spoke for itself. The forms of the pieces were mostly dialog, but all-around enjoyable. The rhythm in the pieces were either fast then, slow, slow, then fast, fast, or slow. The melodies of the pieces had that spanish pop, but at the same time romantic-like french music. The harmony in the pieces were usually shared between a man and a woman. The dynamics were mostly loud, but occasionally soft. In my opinion, I felt that Carmen had her own timbre compared to everyone else. The tempo in mainly every piece was fast. That was a mouthful,I know, but thank-you for reading it all.
Niyyah Gray
Grade 6
A.M.Y. at James Martin School
During a school field trip, we went to go see Carmen. I really enjoyed it. I found the unexpected twist at the end very tragic, but the cliff-hanging ending to such an opera. The voices of all of the singers were amazing and beautiful. I thought it was really creative how they managed to use one set the whole time adding props here and there to create the scenes. The intermissions were at the perfect times, and always left you wondering what would happen next. This was my first opera and I am very happy that it was, before I wasn't quite sure what Carmen was, but I learned so much about the opera and will always remember it. The orchestra had beautiful harmonies and sounded so great! Fantastic job cast and crew of Carmen!!
'Carmen' truly captured the life of a gypsy, while playing with the factor of how gypsies never truly fall in love - as when Carmen sings "Love is a gypsy, it has no path, if you don't love me then I love you, and if I love you... watch out!" I also really enjoyed when the characters would change their outfits, but I personally liked the first outfit Carmen had on, since it had more of a gypsy factor to it.
I loved how Carmen would make certain facial expressions reacting to lines that the other characters would do. It really made me feel like I could connect to what she was thinking.
Overall I think Carmen was an amazing show and I'm glad I had the chance to see it.