International Women’s Day eve was a fitting opening night for Johan Inger’s production of Carmen, presented by The Australian Ballet. Throughout its long history across stage and screen, buoyed by Georges Bizet’s renowned score, Carmen has explored male violence and female empowerment.
Traditional interpretations depict Carmen as the instigator of her own demise, her sensuality and sexual freedom leading the besotted Don José to undertake a crime of passion. Inger’s choreography responds to our current time and shifts the blame from Carmen, performed on opening night by Jill Ogai, to Don José, performed by Callum Linnane. Any hints of romantic interest from Carmen are removed. What’s left is a trickle of disinterested yet alluring attention bestowed on Don José, borne sometimes out of necessity and sometimes out of egotistical motives. Don José, disturbingly desperate for Carmen from the jump, laps up each drop as he devolves into more predatory and violent behaviour.
Inger’s choreography is dynamic and gripping, with Carmen and Don José’s pas de deux in Act One a particular highlight. The company deftly performs the work with ease. Inger delivers clear storytelling and uses symbolism, like a mish mash of military salutes or an arm weaving under another’s crotch, to expose characters’ internal worlds. He doesn’t shy away from themes of sensuality, obsession and violence. This provides, among other things, a rare display of women’s anger and aggression in ballet when Inger takes audiences inside the factory for Carmen’s and the factory workers’ fight.
Ogai embodies the titular character with a magnetic confidence that borders on machismo when she dances with the men who desire her. There is also an essence of femme fatale in her interpretation; she twists and grinds on stage with relaxed fluidity, ever cool and collected, but is razor sharp in her appraisal of those around her. The character feels lived in, Ogai adding thoughtful touches like adjusting her skirt in preparation for a tussle with a fellow factory worker as if she’s fought a dozen times or more.
Despite what the show’s title suggests, Inger cannot escape the narrative’s pull to centre Don José and his inner world. This is especially the case in Act Two, which he dominates. But where other productions humanise or rationalise Don José, Inger doubles down on the character’s off putting behaviour and delusional view of his actions. Linnane doesn’t shy away from this and takes well to the work the role requires. By Act Two he is utterly unsettling and perverse.
Inger’s choreography is buttressed by a score, set and costume design that reflects his modern interpretation of the story and style of dance. Like current architectural styles, the set is unwelcoming and pared back to the point of uninteresting, bar the mystifying exits and entrances of the corps de ballet it enables at the end of Act One. The costumes follow a similar vein, stripped of visual fanfare, as a further reminder that we’re watching a modern and gritty interpretation of Carmen.
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This production of Carmen is a clever programming choice by The Australian Ballet’s Artistic Director David Hallberg, utilising the beloved music and famous narrative that Inger thoughtfully and sumptuously reinterprets, to provide an entry point for audiences into modern ballet.
On the whole, the work is fresh and exciting with Inger providing visual and thematic intrigue that offers yet another unique perspective on this centuries old story. And as always, The Australian Ballet delivers.
Carmen
The Australian Ballet
Choreography: Johan Inger
Assistant Choreographers: Toby Mallitt, Javier Rodríguez Cobos and Urtzi Aranburu
Dramaturg: Gregor Acuña-Pohl
Music: Rodion Shchedrin, after Georges Bizet’s ‘Carmen Suite’
Georges Bizet orchestrated by Álvaro Domínguez Vázquez, ‘Overture’ and ‘Danse Bohème’
Additional Original Music: Marc Álvarez
Lighting Design: Tom Visser
Lighting reproduced in 2025: Doef Beernink and Tom Willis
Set Design: Curt Allen Wilmer and Leticia Gañán (aapee) with Estudio DeDos
Costume Design: David Delfín
Costume Design associate: Maria Luisa Ramos
Intimacy Coordinator Amy Cater
The Regent Theatre, Melbourne
Tickets: $58-$310
Carmen will be performed until 18 March before touring to Canberra Theatre Centre from 20-25 June 2025.
