Tom Guthrie: We can all relate to the human stories in the opera “Carmen”

In 2020, as all theatres closed, Tom’s charity Music and Theatre for All had to move all of its work online.

For all those who miss having live theatre in the world, Music and Theatre for All asks Artistic Director Thomas Guthrie for some insight into his process of devising four Director’s Visions for the Royal Opera House 2020 Design Challenge.

How do you come up with four different visions of the same opera?

‘It was such an interesting thing to be asked to come up with several versions of an opera like this. I mean, in more normal times, it might never have happened! I was really grateful for the opportunity. Normally, if I was asked what I would do with a certain piece, a certain story, how I would approach telling it, for me, there would be only one question that was really important or relevant:

How do you want to tell this story right now, with these people, in this place, for this audience?

And there would be one answer to that question, essentially, layered though it might be. There might be alternative possibilities along the way but I would gradually (or even quite quickly!) discard them.

So the idea of doing a number of different answers is a really interesting exercise. And the challenge is I suppose the same for many as for one: to make them clear and strong; to make them compelling; and to write them with conviction (even if, in my heart, I might want to work towards just one of them myself!).

Added to that, what was interesting is that it’s kind of against my beliefs, my understanding of what’s good in theatre, to make a statement myself of what the story is about – ‘it’s about this or about that’ — that is not normally my way.

You can tell a story with an inspiring, witty, and human approach — with invention, with beauty, with conjuring skills even — and then let the audience decide what the story is about. That is definitely more my thing and another reason why I relish this interesting challenge’.

Do you have a process of going through the story, the characters, the setting, or any other route that helps you make your visions varied?

‘I’m reminded about a scene in the pub in Shakespeare in Love.

This old-time actor guy who’s been there and done that and nobody really recognises him and he’s having a pint and he says:

“yeah I was in Romeo and Juliet”

and this guy says:

“you were in Romeo and Juliet, brilliant, that’s amazing. I’ve heard of that. What’s it about?”

and the actor says:

“Well, there’s this nurse…” - because that’s the part that he played in it.

You can talk about any story from the perspective of any character and it should feel that it’s their story.

Of course, the director needs to keep a bit of an eye on what the hierarchy of the story might be to the audience’.

What is Carmen about?

‘It is about lots of different things and this is one of the things I mean:

Is deciding what it’s about, actually, anything to do with how you want to tell the story?

But ok, here are a few things you could say it’s about:

A story of the pull between safety and risk

You’ve got this bloke, Don José, who’s very clearly, but not explicitly, had an issue at home like he’s been in trouble — like a local lad who’s got in trouble with the police — and he’s left home and joined the army.

His mum asks his childhood sweetheart, Micaëla — the good girl from home who is also going to stand by him, of course — to take him a message saying that she forgives him, wants him to come home, and it’s all going to be OK.

He is trying to be a good boy, but, you know, maybe he’s got this wild side to him…

There’s some trouble in the square and a bit of a hoo-hah and Carmen is locked up in a cell for the night. She uses her feminine wiles to get him to help her escape.

Here’s the thing that probably got him in trouble at home in the first place: the sense that he’s got a bit of an eye for adventure, maybe, or a weakness that he’s gullible and easily led.

Anyway, he’s a very interesting character with a bit of a past and when she tries to wrap him around her little finger, he’s up for it and she escapes and then he gets locked up himself because he’s implicated.

He has these fantasies that this wild wonderful woman is the answer to all his problems.

Then you’ve got this woman, Carmen, who’s obviously got a bit of a soft spot for this bloke who is quite a good guy compared to most people in her life who are ruffians and criminals and drug dealers.

She has genuine fantasies, I think, about living a slightly more gentle life somewhere with a good man who understands and who has a bit of a fire in him.

So you have this pull, almost, between a safe home life which a mother would be proud of — a very relevant thing for all of us probably — and going out and saying yes to riskier experiences: possibly travelling a lot, possibly living a life where you might say yes to situations which compromise you but are thrilling, you know, or maybe awful things that one hopes don’t happen but are to do with whether you take risks in life, or not, and live a lot, or not.

A story of jealousy, love, and freedom

You could say it is primarily about jealousy: his inability to let her go, to let her have a life, which causes tragedy.

The freedom thing is interesting: Is this story about a man who has decisions to make about his life and sort of gets it wrong? (But does he? He makes a choice that maybe we all do, it’s just some of us are lucky and get away with it and have a brilliant time).

Or is this story about a woman in a man’s world?

The tragedy

In a man’s world, Carmen is forced to use her charms and her femininity to manipulate, to get what she wants, in order to be a free woman, in order to be a modern woman, in order to be herself.

She’s a strong character but she has to survive so she uses what she has got, her femininity. You only have to listen to the Habañera — to hear this sort of strong, snake-like character who has got a hell of a sting — to know that.

Is the tragedy, actually, that that’s not necessarily what her character is?

Is actually what she want a quieter life? Maybe she longs for safety and that’s what attracts her, genuinely, to Don José and that’s why she takes the risk with him.

Ask the actor in the pub

You could meet a former actress in the pub and she’d say:

“it’s about a good woman, stuck in a man’s world, who just wants to be free.”

And then you could turn around to the guy next to her in the pub and say:

“you were in it, I thought you said it was about a guy who tries to do the right thing and get the balance right and he was right to want that, but he has a series of bad luck.”

And then you might turn around to the designer, and they say:

“it’s about jealousy”.

Another angle is the bull-fighter who says:

“this is the story of the handsome star who falls in love and gets his life ripped apart by some low-life loser who stabs the love of his life.”’

Is there anything you feel you HAVE to include in your four Director’s Visions?

‘I want to put all of those thoughts into four separate versions of Carmen with very clear potential outcomes in terms of design. This is a design competition for young people and there should be very clear, workable, and contrasting directions for them to go in.

I also want to inspire people with the idea that Bizet’s Carmen was pretty revolutionary and not particularly popular at the time of the first performances because of the slightly dangerous subject matter and the fact that is was musically avant-garde.

That’s one of the challenges with Carmen: to make it as arrestingly shocking as it once was — or certainly to have that possibility in there.

This is not a sweet story of bohemian Seville with the dancing skirts and the maracas and the sort of slightly romanticised bandit life’.

Design Challenge is for schools. Does that have a bearing on your approach to the Director’s Visions?

This reminds me about one of the things I get asked a lot when I’m talking about staging, for instance, a community opera or, you know, the difference between working with amateurs or professionals:

What’s the difference? How do you alter what you do?

In a sense it’s an understandable question completely but the answer is:

I don’t change at all.

The process is the same for everything. I think that you should never underestimate the imagination and the ability of children to understand and to appreciate and to instinctively respond to a story, right?

Kids are more capable of imaginative connection than adults a lot of the time. So that’s the first thing.

The second thing is that, like with amateurs in community opera, one is challenged, in a sense, simply to do it even better than one would with professionals as one has to be more clear and more inspired and more inspiring, hopefully. Ideally, that is what one should try and do. If anything, one is challenged to do one’s best work.

So what is one’s best work on Carmen? Clarity, inspiration, imagination.

Let’s see what happens’.

Read the Director’s Visions for “Carmen” in full here

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For more information about the Royal Opera House Design Challenge: https://learning-platform.roh.org.uk/theatrecraft or email design.challenge@roh.org.uk