Bridges’ Carmen fought with a Manuelita performed by Cuban-American dancer Blanche Hampton, now a member of the San Francisco Opera Dance Corps.īridges conveys Carmen’s sensuality in her first act seduction of the conflicted Don Jose, and uses it again in her successful attempt to prevent Jose’s return to his barracks. It included a vigorous first scene fight – with fellow cigarette factory worker Manuelita – at the front of the stage (which in the opera and virtually all other productions happens offstage). Washington State mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges, in her most important San Francisco Opera assignment to date, was a vocally secure, dramatically convincing Carmen.īridges’ physically demanding performance went beyond the gypsy dancing (with castanets) expected of Carmens in most productions. Tonight the second part of the company’s 2018-19 season opened with New York director Francesca Zambello’s production of Bizet’s “Carmen”, based on Zambello’s 2006 production for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and the Norwegian Opera. The San Francisco Opera typically mounts five operas every fall and mounts three more the following summer.

Carmen san francisco opera