When Georges Bizet’s Carmen – an opera of seduction, gypsies, bullfights and murder – premiered in Paris in 1875, it scandalised the audience. Bizet died unexpectedly on the night of the 33rd performance and never got to see his opera’s score immortalised and its story endlessly remade. Matthew Bourne’s ballet The Car Man, currently on tour, is one such adaptation.
In Bourne’s version, it is the 1950s and a newcomer, Luca (Harrison Dowzell), arrives at the small town of Harmony as the summer sun begins its descent, flooding the stage in hues of orange. Lez Brotherston’s set of a dusty garage and diner belonging to Dino (Danny Reubens) is wild with movement as the corps get ready to close up shop and head out for drinks. Dino’s unhappy wife, Lana (Cordelia Braithwaite), deftly manoeuvres around the dining tables in a series of modern balletic sequences: flexed feet rather than pointed, stop-start movements in place of fluidity. When she lays eyes on Luca, she stops abruptly – the story of betrayal, double-crossing and lust, extra-marital and homoerotic – begins with that single glance.
Hints of Bizet’s Carmen can be found in Terry Davies’ score, which samples arias from Rodion Shchedrin’s Carmen Suite: the sultry “Habanera” and upbeat “Toreador”, that bend the atmosphere to the music.
The Car Man has an air of a Mid-western noir: the suspense is high, fights are ready to break out, and moments of comedic relief are brief. When the ballet premiered in 2000, Bourne could not have imagined how relevant the themes of the performance would be 26 years on. Toxic masculinity tears through the performance as it does social media: men treat women as objects; physical prowess and violence are the main currency; lust is king – until Lana takes control of the narrative. Yet, the ballet, as energetic as it is, has moments of gripping tenderness too.
While 19th-century audiences found Carmen shocking, today’s viewers will realise that fate is ultimately in our hands – in Bourne’s telling at least.
The Car Man is on tour until 21 November
[Further reading: Sarah Kane’s Cleansed leaves you feeling anything but]
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