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Bizet’s Carmen seduces Kelowna with a weekend of opera

Kelowna Opera re-imagines the opera classic for their summer performance

One of the best known operas has come to captivate Kelowna with its fiery love story.

Georges Bizet’s Carmen at the Kelowna Community Theatre is stripped down as the women wear pants and corsets and pop their hips with a lethal force.

The audience will recognize the famous songs Habanera, as ‘Carmencita’ introduces herself on stage and the Toreador song. As they experience the opera that is set in Spain and performed in French that tells the love story between Carmen, a gypsy, Don Jose, an army officer and bullfighter Escamillo.

Related: One of the best known operas has come to captivate Kelowna with its fiery love story.

“The opera Carmen has tunes that many will recognize and go home whistling,” Alexandra Kosachukova Babbel, founding artistic director of Kelowna Opera said. “Opera all about singing but the genre is very visual one, we spent a great deal of time and fiscal energy with our set design our lighting design and our couture design.

Babbel reworked Carmen, that Bizet staged in 1875 into a modern setting instead of it’s traditional Spanish Seville style, giving her modern sensibilities, dressed in corsets and with tattoos.

Related: Breaking into song at the library

“Typically she (Carmen) is stereotyped as the promiscuous flirtatious girl but, she is strong. She is a strong character and she is the leader of all these gypsies and smuggler. She will do whatever it takes to make that happen,” Barbara King, who shares the role of Carmen said. “Her character has been through a lot in her life and even in my personal experience you need to bring to that as well dramatically physically and emotionally.”

Having played Carmen twice before King, who has experience in the Calgary and Edmonton opera says she is still learning new things about her role.

“This has been such a great dramatic experience for me, I am finding new things about her and especially in the modern setting it makes it so different.”

Ticket information can be found on the Opera Kelowna website.

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sydney.morton@kelownacapnews.com

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Orchestra during Carmen rehearsal Sydney Morton photo
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Orchestra during Carmen rehearsal Sydney Morton photo
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Orchestra during Carmen rehearsal Sydney Morton photo
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Orchestra during Carmen rehearsal Sydney Morton photo
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Orchestra during Carmen rehearsal Sydney Morton photo
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Carmen rehearsal Sydney Morton photo