08.06.2026 CARMEN Asmik Grigorian Salzburg

The premiere of Georges Bizet's new production of Carmen at the Salzburg Festival on July 26, 2026, immediately became one of the most discussed opera premieres of the summer. The performance, staged by Gabriela Carrizo with the participation of her Peeping Tom dance troupe and conducted by Theodor Currentzis at the head of the Utopia Orchestra and Utopia Choir, not only divided the critics, but also revealed several key lines of today's conversation about opera: how to read «Carmen» today after discussions about femicide, how far the director can go in analyzing male violence what happens to Bizet's music if you return it to its early authorial layers, and how musical subtlety correlates with visual overload on the big festival stage. The range of estimates turned out to be wide, but not chaotic. Almost all critics agree on one thing: Hasmik Grigoryan, in her role-playing debut, became the undisputed center of the performance, and the vocal ensemble turned out to be at the level of the largest festival event of the season. The debate begins when it comes to Carrizo's direction, the volume of Peeping Tom's dance layer, the role of electronic sound interventions, and Currentzis' conducting strategy, which in this production offered not just a personal interpretation, but also work with an earlier, less familiar version of Bizet's score. Among the German—language texts, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung review has special weight - not only as the opinion of one critic, but as...