Aspendos

Carmen opera at Aspendos opera ballet 2019 festival, September 1-2

German Chancellor Angela Merkel attends the Bayreuth opera festival in Germany every year during the summer months. This year she has also participated, and she wore the dress she bought on her trip to the United States 20 years ago. Wagner stipulated that some of his operas should be staged in Bayreuth environment for at least 100-years only. Anyway, Wagner operas are now being played everywhere.

We have a similar atmosphere at the Aspendos festival. The 26th International Aspendos Opera and Ballet Festival started with the opera “Carmen" where the production will be staged at the Aspendos Antique Theater. Antalya State Orchestra was conducted by conductor Zdravko Lazarov.

French composer Georges Bizet's beloved opera “Carmen” was staged in the festival by the Italian director Vincenzo Grisostomi Travaglini by the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet.

Russian Bolshoi Theater lead singer Yulia Mazurova and Russian mezzo-soprano Anastasia Boldyreva took the stage in Aspendos with the title role of “Carmen".

Antalya state symphony orchestra plays between 60-80 artists, among them foreign brides settled in Antalya, Russian women, there are Azerbaijani men.

Istanbul ballet has performed great dances in orchestral music parts without human voice like overture so that we wondered if we have come to ballet instead of opera. Istanbul opera choir and soloists as well as costume designs were great.

At the Aspendos festival The program was unclear until the last month. It is very difficult to arrange a place in advance. Our program in the eastern geography is always so loose. if we do not earn money from this work ü, we will not have anything to do with opera. In the ancient theater of the 2nd century AD with a capacity of 15 thousand Audience, the viewers were western tourists coming by bus from nearby hotels, and there were only a few local people.

Stone seating places had comfortable sponge cushions on the bank advertised.
If I prepared the program, I would put Tosca, LaTraviata, mozart, wagner tannhouser alıng with Carmen,
A similar opera ballet environment does not exist elsewhere in the country.
There are other festivals in Bodrum, TurgutReis, Ephesus but Aspendos is unique.

The young girls who worked at the buffet watched with enthusiasm on the side, but probably young people showed little interest.

Carmen's main subject is a woman's murder, the crazy lover DonJose who committed the murder, told the story to the writer while he waited for the day he would be executed in the Spanish city of Seville in 1838.

Today's directors can add interesting new interpretations to the stage.
DonJose, a desperate lover of Berlin's comischeoper modern interpretation, strangles Carmen with his yellow wig, then commits suicide, and if it turns out that in new modern interpretations, and in the last act, Carmen kills DonJose with a knife or pistol as self-defense, because Carmen is a brave female character, and libretto allows this to contrary end.

Antalya, 3-September 2019