A Conversation with Christopher Wheeldon about the new “Carmen” at the Metropolitan Opera

On January 1, I spoke briefly to Christopher Wheeldon, who was on his way to Spain “for a little bit of a rest and some work.” Last night was the première of the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Carmen, directed by Richard Eyre, with choreography by Wheeldon. Carmen was sung by the rich-voiced Latvian mezzo Elina Garanca, paired with Roberto Alagna as her Don José; the Canadian Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducted. For this production, Wheeldon imagined a dancing couple who represent aspects of the violent love affair between Carmen and Don José. On opening night, these roles were performed by the regal (and enigmatic) Maria Kowroski of New York City Ballet, and the British dancer  Martin Harvey, who is currently performing the role of Johnny Castle in the West End production of Dirty Dancing. Both of them have danced with Wheeldon’s own company, Morphoses. I asked Christopher Wheeldon how he felt about the new  Carmen:

MH: How did it go last night?

CW: It was great… The performance went exceptionally well, so everyone was really happy. It was a good night.

MH: Were you happy with how the dances turned out?

CW: Yes. You know, the dances are a very small fraction of the production, but they have a presence. There’s definitely a dance presence in this Carmen; it’s dancier than it probably has been before.

MH: Recently, the Met has been placing more attention on choreography in its productions. Even when there’s just a small amount of dance, it seems to have a strong impact. Do you think it’s because people aren’t expecting it?

CW: I think so. This production of Carmen opens with dance. The first people you see are the two dancers. It’s a strong statement, and it’s an unusual way to begin Carmen. I think audiences respond really well to dance in opera because in some ways it’s a palate cleanser as well, to be able to shift your concentration onto something a little different, especially in an evening as long as Carmen.

MH: Is it liberating not to have all the attention be on you, as it is when you work with your own company, Morphoses, or with a ballet company?

CW: Yes, absolutely, it’s also fun to work on a team, because usually, although I have my team, the people that work with me are more administrtative. This gave me the chance to work with a director, with the conductor, and with the designer.

MH: What about when you work with a big ballet company, do you get input?

CW: It’s usually left more up to me. I usually wear the director/choreographer hat; I think that’s just the nature of the art form. We don’t work in collaboration with directors. It’s probably kind of a good idea to think of working with a director, especially if you’re making a story ballet, someone like Richard Ayre, who’s very much about character. That’s where everything springs from.

MH: Is [working in opera] limiting as well?

CW: You have parameters, and sometimes it’s quite nice to be given parameters. The dance has to fit into the opera, and has to tell the story, and those are the rules, and you go into it knowing that. It’s not about breaking rules and it’s not really about completely conceptualizing something, it’s about, in this case, making dance that feels right for Carmen…. Often when I’m choreographing solo, I pick the music and I work a lot in the abstract. The possibilities are endless, and though that’s sometimes completely liberating it can also be restrictive in a way, because you could go anywhere.

MH: You’re also restricted by your own imagination.

CW: Yeah, that’s very true. This allowed me to work a little bit in the abstract too because there’s a ballet couple in the piece, and they represent elements of Carmen and Don Jose’s relationship: at the beginning they represent fate, and then in act three they represent the innocence of the love that they must have had at some point, because you never see that in the opera.

MH: You get it in the music.

CW: Especially with that beautiful third act entracte, usually it’s an orchestral passage, and maybe you see Micaela wandering through the mountains, or the gypsies arriving at the camp. In this production it’s a duet for two dancers and it’s so sweet, it’s so beautiful, that moment. In my mind it represents the purity and innocence [of Carmen and Don José’s love].

MH: So you made dances for the third act entracte, and part of the Prelude.

CW: The curtain goes up, and there’s a big kind of crack in the scenery, it’s like a red crack and the first thing you see are two hands reaching through this crack and then the two dancers emerge. It’s very short, but it has quite an impact. The music is so big and so sort of fateful; I tried to make something sort of graphic that represents the drama and the tragedy of these two lovers’ fate. To be overly descriptive in one minute wouldn’t work.

MH: It’s symbolic.

CW: Yes, it’s a little bit like those Victorian cut-outs, in silhouette.

MH: And then you also made dances for the scene in Lilas Pastia’s tavern.

CW: Yes, the gypsy dance in Lilas Pastia’s bar, for Carmen, Mercedes, Frasquita, and five men and five women. That was a different challenge. That was more a case of integrating the singers with the dancers, which I think is often a big problem in opera, because you have the dancers who come out for the ballet section and to me they always seem to sort of stick out and what I wanted to do was to get the singers to a level where they would be comfortable with the movement, and also arrange the dancers so they would complement the singers. I was blessed in the sense that Elina Garanca is beautiful and young, and she can move.

MH: What was it like to work with her?

CW: Terrific. She’s kind of a force of nature. Even when she comes into a room, she’s very glamorous, and beautiful, and has a very strong personality. She was open to try anything, and wasn’t satisfied until she felt that she’d really mastered the movement. She practiced some on her own, and then we had many sessions alone with her. And Frasquita and Mercedes as well. We took the “Quant au Douanier” song from act III, which is really kind of boring, and Richard and I decided that because it’s descriptive of the way they distract the border guards, it actually would be fun if it were dance. In that case we didn’t have the dancers with them, so  it was Mercedes Frasquita and Carmen, and we worked a lot on that one, because it’s exposing to them, because they aren’t dancers, and they have to connect the movement to the voice. We can’t have them twisting or bending at certain points.

MH: Did you learn a lot about singers?

CW: I did. I learned a lot about what they can and can’t do, and actually, about what they think they can and can’t do.

MH: How were they?

CW: I was really proud of them actually. I told them last night that I’m now going to call them my dancers, not my singers.

MH: Are you planning to do more work in opera?

CW: If the project is right… I was really, really interested in working with Richard Eyre because I’ve admired his work for a long time, and I think it’s important that you have a connection with a director.

MH: What about Europe?

CW: I’ve only ever been approached by the Met as a choreographer. We’re talking about doing something else in a couple years time.

MH: Have you ever thought about directing opera?

CW: I would consider it. I’m starting to really appreciate opera a lot more. I love working with Peter Gelb at the Met. He’s coming under a lot of criticism for the updating of a lot of these productions. I think in order to revitalize the audience, it’s the only way to go. This Carmen is very sexy, it’s no-holds-barred. It’s not disrespectful in any way to the material, it’s not conceptual, but it’s modern.

MH: You think dance has a part in [the revitalization of opera]?

CW: Yeah, absolutely.

MH: What is the upcoming project with the Met?

CW: It’s still in the works, not really there yet, but I can tell it’s going to be sort of a new opera, working with an interesting director. Something new for the Met, actually, something quite new for opera.