Interview: Lillian Groag of CARMEN at Opera San José Takes a Fresh Look at the All-Time Classic

Any opera fan has a pretty clear idea of what to expect from that old chestnut Carmen, right? It's about a seductive, free-spirited woman who reels in an innocent naïf, leading to her tragic end. Well, opera director Lillian Groag believes it's a little more complicated than that, and she is taking the opportunity to tell a more nuanced story with her new production at Opera San José running February 12th to 27th. As she sees it, the story of Carmen usually depicted on stage and screen can't possibly be the one that created the enormous scandal of its opening night. Groag, who holds multiple PhDs, has given Carmen a great deal of thought, delving into what, besides the fantastic music, draws us to this immortal work - and what we might be missing. Under her reimagined stage direction, fiery flamenco joins glorious singing to ignite Bizet's iconic opera in a new collaboration with the acclaimed Flamenco Society of San José. Dance, singing and drama come together to tell the passionate tale of a defiant heroine whose rebellious quest for freedom defies societal expectations of women and seals her tragic fate.

The Argentinian-born Groag has enjoyed a long and multi-faceted career as a director-playwright-actor. As an actor, she won a Helen Hayes Award for her performance in the now-legendary original production of the epic The Kentucky Cycle that played at the Mark Taper Forum in LA and the Kennedy Center in Washington before moving to Broadway. Her plays, such as The Magic Fire and Menocchio, have been produced at theaters across North America, including Berkeley Rep, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the Shaw Festival. In recent years, she has perhaps been most active as a director of theater and opera, helming productions at ACT, Virginia Opera and California Shakespeare Theater. I connected with Groag this week via email to learn more about Opera San José's new Carmen and her own fascinating career.

What is it about Carmen that makes it such a perennial favorite with audiences?

Carmen's got everything. Sensational - and recognizable, accessible - music. A great, if troubling, story. Love, hate, violence, exoticism. People that are just like us... but not really. Thrills.

What made you want to take a fresh look at it?

It's always interesting to revisit favorites. I find I generally discover new turns and twists that I may have previously overlooked, or that I gave short shrift to. Often there are things that may come as a new revelation to the audience, including people who thought they knew the opera quite well, except... surprise! And often those unearthed elements turn out to be the most intriguing. Besides that, I always try to find points of humor, without which many works would prove to be relentlessly grim (although we might agree there are not a lot of laughs in Parsifal). I've noticed that great artists, to various degrees, have a deep sense of irony and humor that are paradoxically indispensable to any serious work and I enjoy teasing that out in a new production.

Carmen and Don José quite have a tempestuous connection, to say the least. How do you view their relationship?

They are two people who should never meet. When they do, the result is, of course, explosive. Don José is a man of good family (after all, it's "Don" José, a form of address not used by anyone else in the opera). But rather oddly, he is a mere corporal in a lone garrison in a dusty corner of Seville. Why? It turns out he has already been in trouble with the law (killing a man over a ball game) and has evidently been whisked into the army by his family (as it was customary) to avoid legal consequences. So his violent temper is already in place. Carmen is a woman who has had to fight tooth and nail to survive in a brutal culture. As was also customary in this particular milieu, she was sold as "wife" at thirteen by her father to another man called García who doesn't appear in the opera. All this is made clear in the original novella by Mérimée, to which I direct everyone. Carmen has naturally developed a hard heart and a way with men that would ensure her survival. At the time our story begins, she's almost feral and he is a dangerous man.

Your production features two local treasures, the Flamenco Society of San José and the CANTA Children's Chorus. How are they integrated into the staging?

The panache, confrontational, flashy stomp of Flamenco so accurately reflects Carmen's "character" and conveys the edge, danger, beauty, and spectacle of this work. Act II begins with the Chanson de Bohème, which climaxes into a wild communal dance by all the gitanos in Lillas Pastia's tavern, a gathering place for this gang of smugglers (and worse). Again, fantastic music, and in our production it will be paired with fantastic dancing. There is also a mysterious dancer in the night whom no one sees, but Carmen "feels" following her around. I will say no more to avoid explaining what should remain unexplainable for maximum effect.

For the children's chorus in the opera (a band of kids who taunt the soldiers, and later cheer the bullfighters) we are thrilled to have the CANTA children, who are the most enchanting, capable, funny, smartest kids I've ever worked with. They're immensely talented, cheerful and disciplined. Solid pros. I wish I could say the same for me at that tender age. (I was just known in my neighborhood for biting.)

You've enjoyed an unusually broad-based career, having had success as an actor, playwright and director. Was it always your intention to operate in so many different capacities?

It was a sort of "natural" evolution. I started as an actress, then directing and writing followed almost simultaneously, with playwriting trailing a tad behind. I was very lucky. There are antecedents for this in past centuries (Shakespeare, Molière, to name the most prominent) and more that I'm sure we don't know about, but I feel that in the past few years this combination is resurging, perhaps in a more pronounced iteration than ever before. Especially among women who have had to diversify to make work for themselves.

You were part of the marvelous ensemble cast of The Kentucky Cycle at the Kennedy Center and on Broadway. What was that journey like?

We were together for some four years or so, starting with the first workshops at the Taper. Airports, airplanes, buses, trains, backpacks... we were Hamlet's Traveling Players. It was a period of unforgettable experiences, friendships, and work which turned out to be one of a kind.

It's been heartening to see more women in leadership roles in the opera world in recent years, but we're certainly not there yet in terms of equity. What do you think still needs to change in order to make that a reality?

It has indeed been heartening and I think we're making giant, swift strides. Never wanting to "run" anything myself, I nevertheless insist that we just have to make up our minds to it and make sure our new positions "at the table" cannot be ascribed to gender.

What is the best part of your job as an opera director? What's the most fun aspect?

It's extremely hard work, if done well. Good enough is not good enough. I like hard work. I don't take "vacations" - I wouldn't know what to do. As to the fun part, that's when all the minds in the room converge into a single aim: a good show. In grand opera there are many, many minds in that one room, all different individuals, with very different experiences, working towards a common goal. Cordiality, civility, and an open mind are the marks of real pros, and when all of that is present the experience is irreplaceable.

After Carmen opens, what is next on your plate?

Getting back to a very complicated play I simply must finish this year!

---

Opera San José's production of Carmen will be sung in French, with English supertitles, with performances February 12 - 27, 2022 at the California Theatre, 345 South 1st Street, San Jose, CA. For more information or to purchase tickets visit operasj.org or call (408) 437-4450.

To post a comment, you must register and login.