Étienne Jardin, director of research for Palazzetto Bru Zane, acknowledges that their latest endeavour proved controversial. ‘In 2023, this historical staging of Carmen provoked some fairly extreme reactions’, he writes in the book that accompanies the DVD, Blu ray and streaming release of the production.

For this Carmen, Bru Zane endeavours to reconstitute the sets, costumes and basic blocking of the original 1875 Opéra-Comique production. The source material is ample, including original documentation of the basic onstage movements of chorus and principals and coloured lithographs that give details of the sets and costumes.

Everyone involved in the production acknowledges that this is a foray into the past, a research project, not a manifesto about how opera should be done. But the results are entirely too satisfying for opera lovers not to see this as a kind of reform project, similar perhaps to the way in which the historically informed performance movement of the past half-century has helped reform instrumental performance practice. They got a lot of things right in 1875, and contemporary directors would do well to learn from that data.

Contemporary accounts of the 1875 production noted the ‘garish’ colours of the sets and costumes. That is not the impression left by this production, with sets by Antoine Fontaine and costumes by Christian Lacroix. The lighting, by Hervé Gary, is an attempt to mimic gaslight, and the results are a softer, more shadowy ambience that mutes some of the colours. The palette resembles that of a 19th-century genre painting, with a few splashes of colour, a Canaletto sky in the distance and the more brightly hued costumes popping in the mix.

The sets, with painted flats, facilitate multiple paths on and off stage, and push the action toward the footlights. This helps focus attention during arias and small ensembles, and for the most part the director avoids unnecessary busy action when the music is in the foreground.

The producers have opted for what has become the standard Carmen score in most houses today, with the Guiraud recitatives and many of the standard cuts. The orchestra, deftly conducted by Ben Glassberg with keen attention to the tempos marked in the score, is a modern rather than period-instrument ensemble. Not everything is completely clean – especially some of the faster string passages – but nothing is distracting.

Vocally and dramatically, the star is mezzo-soprano Deepa Johnny in the title-role. From her first entrance and in every note of the Habanera, she is determined to maintain her dignity. She is sultry when necessary, and her seduction of Don José is fully convincing. But there is an ethical refusal of the hyper-sexualised interpretation of Carmen in Johnny’s performance that, paradoxically, makes her an even more alluring and sympathetic figure. In his booklet essay, Gilbert notes that no matter how extensive the documentation of the basic blocking, there is little to nothing about how the principals played out the details of their roles. No matter whether it was Gilbert’s idea or Johnny’s to have Carmen treat Escamillo at first as a bit of pompous braggart, the decision is a smart one. This Carmen is too smart to move on from José so quickly.

Stanislas de Barbeyrac’s José is thoroughly French in tone. One occasionally wishes for a slightly more incisive sound, more clarity coming through the ensemble, but the warmth is welcome, as is his powerful emotional dissolution in Act 4. Iulia Maria Dan’s Micaëla is sung with a larger and more assertive soprano than the warbly ingénue style one often hears. Upper notes aren’t always sweet, but when she must assert herself, as in Act 3’s ‘Je dis que rien ne m’épouvante’, the more mature tone is welcome. Only Nicolas Courjal’s Escamillo disappoints, with brusque, uneven tone and some notable pitch issues.

Whatever controversy the original production inspired, or this release provokes, the essential value of the Bru Zane project is to shift the debate about opera past the usual dichotomy of traditionalist versus modern or Regie-style production. Both have resulted in boring, predictable, workmanlike shows. But the greater offender today, the wellspring of too many grey, barren sets full of singers dressed in generic fascist military garb, is the latter of the two. That’s inevitable, given how long Regietheater has been dominant. When everyone thinks alike, cliché is unavoidable.

If nothing else, this video reminds us that opera in the 19th century was a visual spectacle, and that spectacle wasn’t some sort of vulgar concession to the demands of idle entertainment. Opera was anthropology, sociology, even tourism, and the visual aspect was never incidental. If we care about what the music Bizet had in his ear sounded like in 1875, we should care about what he imagined Carmen should look like, too.