This was published 1 year ago
Love it or hate it, Carmen on Cockatoo Island is going to rock
By Nick Galvin
Love it or hate it, director Liesel Badorrek’s production of Bizet’s Carmen on Cockatoo Island will be hard to ignore.
Forget about frilly skirts, flamenco and strutting toreadors and think instead of motorbikes, leather jackets and rock ‘n’ roll swagger all set against the backdrop of a grungy wreckers’ yard.
Sian Sharp, who plays Carmen, on the set of the production on Cockatoo Island.Credit: Janie Barrett
“The approach was driven by two things,” says Badorrek. “The site and what the opera itself is about – and what that means to people in 2022. This site said to me, you can’t do a sweet, frilly Carmen.
“This is such a unique place with this big, raw industrial vibe. And the opera is about fringe dwellers and misfits, factory workers and smugglers. So we went with a rock aesthetic because the most dominant cultural expression of rebellion is rock ‘n’ roll.”
Traditionalists will be relieved all this is being achieved without tampering with Bizet’s familiar music or the libretto. “None of the libretto or the music has changed,” says Badorrek. “It doesn’t have to.”
Sian Sharp and director Liesel Badorrek.Credit: Janie Barrett
Carmen is often considered one of the most problematic of the core operatic repertoire with its final scene involving Carmen being murdered at the hands of the jealous Don Jose. Badorrek says she had to address this problem from the outset.
“I thought, how am I going to make it work?” she says. “How can I do this and still look myself in the eye? It made me sick to think of it being uncommented upon. For Don Jose killing her to be the last word.”
One of her solutions is to show Carmen as much more than a two-dimensional femme fatale.
“I know women who are wild and bold and flout convention and don’t want to be told what to do,” she says. “But they are not loathsome or aggressive, they are just women who don’t want to be told what to do.
“It’s a far greater tragedy when we feel we have watched a woman we like and understand. I want an audience to be more active in the way they watch the material rather than going: She died. Applause. Let’s go to the bar.
“I want it to sit with people for a moment.”
Badorrek also hopes the unique venue will encourage people who are not usual opera goers to come along.
“People are easily intimated about coming to some place like the Sydney Opera House,” she says. “But to get a ferry to Cockatoo Island and be told that if you want to you can rock up in shorts and sneakers and bring some snacks – I think that’s hopefully going to bring more people to opera.”
However, she is clear-eyed about the fact her Carmen might not please everybody.
“I’m sure there will be some people who hate it and fair enough,” she says. “There will be purists who hate it and that’s absolutely their prerogative. But you can’t make a show you hope everybody will like. That’s like making a Big Mac.”
Carmen on Cockatoo Island runs from November 25 to December 18.
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