La Tragédie de Carmen
Vivian Beaumont Theater,
Lincoln Center for the Perfoming Arts, New York.

Stagebill and Cast list for February, 1984

Ron's bio in the February Stagebill

Ron Perlman (Zuniga, Lillias Pastia and Garcia) a native New Yorker, has been acting professionally for the past eleven years. He has appeared on Broadway in Tiebele and her Demon; Sunset, directed by Tommy Tune; and American Heroes, directed by Tom O'Horgan. Also under Mr O'Horgan's direction, he played the Emperor in the United States premiere of Arrabal's The Architect and the Emperor of Assyria at La Mama Theater and on tour in Europe and the title role in The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. At leading national theaters he has acted in a wide variety of roles including the title roles in Woyzeck and Tartuffe, Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls, and Lucio in Measure for Measure. He co-starred as Amoukar in the film Quest for Fire, which won him a nomination for a Genie, the Canadian equivalent of the Oscar, and will be seen in the forthcoming film Ice Pirates. Ron has his own nightclub act of saloon songs called No Regrets. He and his wife are the parents of a newborn baby girl, Blake Amanda, their first child.

Anne Christine Biel * Evan Bortnick * Cynthia Clarey * Hélène Delavault * Jean-Paul Denizon * Kathryn Gamberoni * Jake Gardner * Emily Golden * Howard Hensel * James Hoback, Agnès Host * Andreas Katsulas * Robert Langdon-Lloyd Ronald Madden * Beverly Morgan * Ron Perlman * Peter Puzzo * John Rath * Patricia Schuman

Micaëla, a young country girl, arrives in Seville looking for her childhood sweetheart, Don José. She brings him a letter from his mother. A gypsy, Carmen, throws a flower to the young corporal and sings an erotic love song.

The two girls fight and José's superior, Zuniga, appears. Unable to control Carmen, he orders José to take her to jail. En route, Carmen promises José that if he lets her escape she will meet him at the inn of her friend Lillias Pastia. José lets Carmen go, whereupon Zuniga locks him up and takes away the corporal's rank.

Carmen arrives at the inn with stolen goods. Zuniga comes to see Carmen and offers money for her favors. Carmen accepts, but shortly thereafter Jose enters.

Carmen abandons Zuniga and sings for José. At this moment the bugles blow, summoning José back to the barracks. Carmen is furious and taunts him; the situation becomes tense. José discovers Zuniga, loses control and kills the officer.

The body is quickly hidden as Escamillo, a famous bullfighter, enters. Buying drinks all around, he announces that he, too, wants Carmen. José, jealous, picks a fight with Escamillo. Carmen separates them and Escamillo withdraws, inviting all to his next bullfight.

José, who has now killed for Carmen, sings of his love for her. They go to the mountains where an old gypsy woman unites them.

While they are sleeping, Garcia appears at the camp. He is Carmen's husband, though she has hidden his existence from José. The two men challenge each other and as they go off to fight, Carmen reads her tragic fate in the cards. The song ends, Garcia returns wounded and falls dead at Carmen's feet.

Micaëla appears again searching for José; the two women seem to understand each other. They sing while José, twice a murderer and abandoned by Carmen, flees.

Carmen becomes Escamillo's mistress. José returns to persuade her to leave with him to start a new life. She refuses, knowing she is putting her life in jeopardy.

Escamillo is killed in the bullring. Carmen still refuses José's offer, but she goes with him as far as the place where the cards have foretold that she will die.

Peter Brooks' La Tragédie de Carmen is a streamlined 82-minute production (without intermission) sung in French, featuring only four singers, three actors, a fifteen-piece onstage orchestra and a set complete with the dust and dirt of Seville. The libretto and score have been reworked with playwright Jean-Claude Carrière and composer-conductor Marius Constant. In many ways the Brook production reaches back to the visceral realism of Merimée's novel.

"We make it absolutely clear we are not competing with Bizet's opera," Brook has remarked. "What we have done is to separate its actual core from the rest of the material … Everything is trimmed away to focus on the intense interactions, the tragedy of four people." This 'chamber opera' Carmen has, in fact, been the toast of tout Paris; the first season alone brought more than 150 performances - quite a box office smash in the operatic world.

Stagebill provided by Helen Chavez