Indeed, Carmen is the very definition of anti-hero, frustrating viewers and fellow characters alike with harmful words and choices but not necessarily maliciously intentioned. Carmen is a different sort of leading lady compared to many operas that feature a stereotyped lovelorn heroine. Cost-Jackson’s mezzo voice is deep, powerful, and altogether perfect for expressing Carmen’s opinions about lust and love in the willful piece. Entering with the famous and provocative “Habanera” in Act I, Ms. Costa-Jackson commands the attention of the audience as successfully as Carmen does the men surrounding her. Fiery hardly begins to describe the volatile Carmen, who, as a notorious seductress, brazenly spreads and slaps her thighs while laughing at the besotted men hanging on to her every word. The sultry Carmen is embodied with almost alarming likeness by the talented Mezzo-Soprano Ginger Costa-Jackson, making her main stage debut in this production. José is pulled along by the whims of Carmen that leads the two lovers into a powerful standoff in the final act of the opera. Caught unawares while on duty is the honorable soldier Don José, who, despite being well intentioned, falls under Carmen’s spell and becomes her lover. As a worker in a local cigarette factory, she flirts and sings with the local garrison troops who hang on her every word, each calling out for her to say they love them in turn. Set in Seville around the 1820s, the opera tells the story of the eponymous Carmen – or Carmencita, as is her nickname – a fiery, independent Gypsy woman who is both brazen and brave, and twirls men around her finger effortlessly with her wicked sense of humor. Photo courtesy of Virginia Opera Company.Ī four-Act work with a French libretto, but set in Seville, Spain with distinctly Spanish themes, Carmen was the most famous work of its French composer, Georges Bizet, who, sadly, did not live to see it become a hit after a lukewarm reception in Paris in 1875. Things were very fiery this past Friday night at the GMU Center for the Arts as the Virginia Opera brings a new and exciting full-scale production of Bizet’s Carmen, one of the most renowned and certainly most dramatic operas in history, to the Fairfax establishment, Don Jose (Dinyar Vania) and Carmen (Ginger Costa-Jackson).

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