Catalogue
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Arena, ''Carmen''

Verona

For 2009 resumption, Franco Zeffirelli brought a drastic intervention to the scenography that he signed for the Arena in 1995. The plaza de toros in Seville is recalled in a symbolic way with several big printed reproductions of bullfighters of the beginning of last century.
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In this scene, as it rarely happens in the contemporary scenography, the use of the Digital printing finds a reasonable justification, because the printings magnify what already in the originals were printed reproductions - even if of original paintings. These are in fact posters of the Twenties, above all, of shows of bullfighting ...
... on which the historical names of Hemingway's period bullfighters are engraved, as Domingo Ortega (1908-1988), Manuel Jiménez ''Chicuelo'' (1902-1967), Marcial Lalanda (1903-1990), José Gárate ''Limeño'' (1895-1921), Rafael Gómez Ortega ''El Gallo'' (1882-1960), ''Juan Belmonte'' García (1892-1962) and several others.
The detail of one of the reproductions realized on ASC - Sceno digital printing muslin.«Zeffirelli, this time, works for subtraction, reorganizing the native project inspired to the taste of the painted scene and to the realism.The coloured and picturesque Seville almost reconstructed in real dimension on the slopes of the Arena leaves the place to light interventions and projections.The stage is delimited by a series of poles that in the second and in the fourth act support some vintage manifestos with representations of bullfighters.» Roberto Mori, in L'opera, n. 239, page 37.
The burrow of the smugglers of the third act. The wild precipices among which Don Josè and Escamillo are faced are symbolically recalled also in this case, without any pretension of realism, with two groups of three legs realized on ASC - Sceno digital printing muslin.
The inn of Lillas Pastia of the second act is recalled in the scene by magnified reproductions of vintage placards with reproductions of gipsies realized with Digital printing.
The 19 placards in Digital printing that show the gipsies have been gathered on the wings on the sides of a central image, three for each part. According to the indications given by the scenographer, the reproductions had been sewn on the scenes realized with UCO - Scenonet.
Other backdrops made of black UCO - Scenonet net were used as a support for compositions with a deliberately coarse and unkempt appearance, which Franco Zeffirelli made with ropes, trimmings and fragments of other nets with a larger mesh.
Carmen
Opéra-comique in four acts
Music
Georges Bizet (1838-1875)
Libretto
Henri Meilhac
Ludovic Halévy
from the homonym tale by Prosper Mérimée
First night
Paris, Opéra-Comique, 3/3/1875
Scenography, stage direction
Franco Zeffirelli
Stage direction (revisitation)
Marco Gandini
Costume design
Anna Anni
Staging
Arena of Verona
Season
2009

Materials used in this production

ASC - Sceno digital printing

Printing on fabrics

UCO - Scenonet

Stage nets

USP - Special Nets

Stage nets

Information on data processing
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