Produced and directed by Hilan Warshaw
For television broadcasts in 2025
Aigul Akhmetshina as Carmen, directed by Damiano Michieletto, Royal Opera House, April 2024. Image @ Overtone Films LLC.
Georges Bizet’s Carmen is one of the greatest and most popular operas of all time. But who is Carmen herself? A heroine? A victim? A betrayer? Few characters in opera are as open to interpretation as the free spirit at the heart of Bizet’s masterwork.
The Faces of Carmen, a documentary in production directed by Hilan Warshaw for broadcasts in 2025 (the 150th anniversary of Carmen’s premiere, as well as Bizet’s death) takes an unusual approach to exploring this evergreen piece. The film follows rising 28-year-old opera star Aigul Akhmetshina as she undertakes a truly unique journey, performing the role of Carmen in seven different productions in a single year. Her Carmen year takes her, and us, to five countries and some of the world’s greatest opera stages— among them Arena di Verona, Vienna State Opera, London’s Royal Opera House, and the Glyndebourne Festival— as she brings Carmen to life in a range of differing productions. Some are modernized, others traditional; some are directed by men, and some by women; some are new, some revivals. We explore each breathtaking European location with her; we hear about each interpretation in interviews with the directors; lastly, we see excerpts from the finished productions and observe how audiences in each country respond. The result is a kind of is a kind of operatic Rorschach test: every director has their own version of the truth about this story, and the questions that Carmen poses about relationships and society are subjective and as relevant today as ever.
A parallel strand of the documentary reconstructs Bizet’s life and work on Carmen. These biographical segments trace the life of an artist far ahead of his time, who died at age 36 in the belief that Carmen— which had just premiered disastrously— was a failure. He could hardly have foreseen that his bold work would one day reign as a cornerstone of the repertoire, or that one singer would embody the role in seven different stagings over the course of one year (in addition to the countless other Carmens presented each year).
Becoming Carmen, Image @ Overtone Films LLC.
Akhmetshina, whose career was launched when she sang Carmen at the Royal Opera House at just 21, says of the role: “She’s always in survival mode, which I understand. I’m just an ordinary girl from a small village in the middle of nowhere in Russia. I had to start working very early and moved to the city when I was 14 to start building my own life. Right from the beginning, I felt she was a very strong person who always fought for freedom… As I grow, I delve deeper into her essence. And every time I work with different directors, I try to find a new angle.” From these humble beginnings she has risen to become, as one London critic recently wrote, “almost universally acclaimed as the Carmen of our times. A consummate actress, she portrays all the qualities of the ideal Carmen… Moreover, she possesses a fabulous instrument, a rich, velvety mezzo with a wide-ranging palette.”
In the opera that bears her name, Carmen sings, “My heart is as free as the air… Whoever wants my soul— it’s theirs for the taking.“ Many have believed they understood her; yet two centuries later, she continues to challenge, entrance, and inspire. She has had many faces. Can we ever truly know Carmen?
