Carmen Goes Home

Spoiler alert: She dies.

At a time when classics continue to be reimagined, renovated, downright torn down and rebuilt, this may come as something of a surprise: In Ballet Hispanico’s “CARMEN.maquia,” choreographer Gustavo Ramirez Sansano’s take on Georges Bizet’s opera, the woman who riled the besotted soldier Don José and pursued the matador Escamillo still meets a brutal end. 

“I went to see a “Carmen” where Carmen is not the one who dies. And I’m like umm, okay …” Eduardo Vilaro, the company’s artistic director and CEO, shared during a video call. “It’s improbable because we have a world that’s dominated by men. It’s misogynistic, mostly. You know, sometimes stories are meant to be told the way they were crafted to teach us lessons. We just have to show it and have people talk about it and say, ‘Wow, that was wrong.’”  

“Carmen” is in the midst of its sesquicentennial. Before Bizet made the heroine indelible 150 years ago, she appeared in Prosper Mérimée’s novella, the basis for Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy’s libretto. In the 20th century, a Spaniard who likened himself to a bull began evoking Carmen in his paintings. Ironically, Pablo Picasso lived in France at the time. 

From the start, “Carmen” has embodied the tensions between cultural appropriation and embrace. How could anything but intriguing happen when the nation’s preeminent Latiné dance company presents “Carmen”?

“It’s not just a ballet that’s performed externally or gesturally—it’s something we feel in our bodies,” Vilaro has said. “That level of authenticity gives our version a unique, nuanced energy that’s distinctly ours.”

And this production comes with its own feints, its own Veronicas, to borrow a bit of bullfighting patois. “There’s no flamenco, no castanets,” says Vilaro. “There is no” … cue a gasp … “red.” As for Carmen, well, “This Carmen is very demure,” Vilaro says. And yet, she is more aware of exploring her power and her passion. As if thinking, “Yeah, I know the danger I’m living in, but I’m still going to play with it,” he says. “And that’s empowering in its own way.”

Set designer Luis Crespo and costume designer Delfin lean into Picasso’s white, black and gray palette and his abstractions. But, “There’s a moment of color,” Vilaro promises, with a knowing smile. 

For years, he would tell Sansano that he had to find a way to connect Carmen’s passion to both men. Now, he thinks, the choreographer has. 

How? “I won’t tell you,” he says—and then relents. But you’ll get no spoiler here.  

Ballet Hispánico performs on the Artist Series at Macky Auditorium on Oct. 9, 2025.