Magdalena Kozena checks whether Jonas Kaufmann has a gun in his pocket in Salzburg's new Carmen, while he hopes she washed her hands first.
Aletta Collins' traditional-looking production appears to be just a few live chickens short of Francesca Zambello's Covent Garden effort:
The Royal Opera House is not usually the place to find a cut-price deal, but they've made an exception with a couple of special Carmen showings. For the performances on 18 and 24 June, all seats are reduced to £37.50 or less. On the top-price seats, this represents a discount of £150+ (!). Best value seats remaining would appear to be mid/rear amphitheatre (£15) and balcony boxes (£105 for 4).
There is a catch - the shows are being filmed for the first-ever 3D opera movie, and the position and size of the special cameras may restrict views to some extent.
It's also not the greatest production or the most star-spangled cast. But it is cheap.
Carmen - Opera Holland Park, 2 June 2010
Just about every last skirt-flicking, thigh-slapping cliché in the book is packed into Opera Holland Park's new but very traditional Carmen. It may not cast a radically fresh light on the old chestnut, yet it rarely feels tired or predictable in the way Francesca Zambello's overcooked Covent Garden production does.
Although the £10 tickets for Opera Holland Park sold out practically the minute they went on sale in March, there is hope if you missed out.
As part of their Inspire Project (an education, outreach and audience development programme), OHP are going to be making a few more cheap ticket offers at short notice. The take-up will also help them work out the best way to run the cheap ticket scheme in future.
As cher Mike of OHP puts it "We are finding that those who know us and are geared up to take advantage of the ten pound seat scheme tend to exclude the chance to give others we also want to target (they are not organised and aware nor necessarily looking for opera etc) and these offers and promotions give us that opportunity. We also know that many people just simply miss out - opera lovers."
First up is their new Carmen, which opened on Wednesday. It's a brilliant production, one of the best they've done (I will post my thoughts later today, but meanwhile check out George Hall's Guardian review) and the whole run is almost sold out.
If you want to see it on Monday 7 June (only) for £10, call 0845 230 9769 and give the password PURPLE. There are a limited number of seats, so it's first-come, first-served.
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