Lidove noviny - Carmen, opera review, July 2010

Lidové noviny, 2.7.2010, Helena Havlíková

Only One of Three Carmen Productions Scores.

The one coming from Olomouc is the best. The Olomouc production of Carmen, staged there by Michael Tarant, is dynamic and pulsating, making the best of Jaroslav Milfajt´s sets which lay out the stage action vertically, on several levels structured as galleries describing a circle which alternately opens up, closes, and rotates. At Olomouc, Michael Tarant has refined his staging style virtually up to a point of perfection, using the logic of the plot in devising a witty, indeed unorthodox concept. The Olomouc company´s Carmen – young and hugely talented Barbora Polášková – has the looks of a charming ingenue, a cuddly kitten, yet one that can set her claws into action full well if things don´t happen to go her way. This was an approach to Carmen which went finely with her flexible, technically assured and well balanced voice that can just do easily without a volume ready to bring the theatre´s walls down.