Finding the Raw and Sensual in ‘Carmen’ and ‘Rusalka’
In the final moments of the third act of Bizet’s Carmen at the Met, the freewheeling gypsy daydreams about her future lover Escamillo as he croons a reprise of his “Toreador Song” from offstage. But then she’s rudely jolted back to reality when the leader of her smuggler gang shoves a heavy bundle of contraband at her. Grimly shouldering the load, she trudges up the mountain pass.
