Review: Joffrey’s ‘Carmen’ is lusty and frisky but has an enigma at its heart

"Carmen" is, in a word, problematic, but ballet companies and opera houses continue to stage versions of Bizet’s opera, a tale of a free-spirited Romani who seduces a soldier, only to be killed by him in a fit of jealous rage.

The story has been widely critiqued as trafficking in racist stereotypes and whitewashing the femicide of its climax. And its title character is confounding. What are modern audiences to make of this lusty, frisky young woman who refuses to be bound by respectability or loyalty? Is Carmen a role model or a cautionary tale?

The answer is unclear in Joffrey Ballet’s staging of a production by the late choreographer Liam Scarlett, now in its U.S. premiere at the Lyric.

Where the opera begins with a crash of cymbals, this version starts quiet and small, with the lone figure of Carmen (Joffrey lead Victoria Jaiani, on opening night) spotlit center stage, pulling tarot cards from a deck. She is the exoticized heart of this telling, yet across the ballet’s three acts, for all Jaiani’s virtuosic dancing — full of endless, liquid extensions and rat-a-tat pointe work — the character remains a cipher.

The broader ballet world isn't sure what to do with Scarlett, nor has it been able to determine if he was problematic, too. The former Royal Ballet wunderkind died by suicide in 2021 after allegations of inappropriate sexual misconduct derailed his career. (An independent probe later found "no matters to pursue.") He sets the piece in 1930s Spain, on the cusp of the Civil War.

The first act establishes the scene, pitting the loping, swooping spirals of a corps of Republican workers against the buttoned-up rigidity of Franco’s soldiers. Here, Carmen is established as a troublemaker and seductress, but her characterization feels thin, all attitude and smoking. The storytelling doesn’t really take off until a yearning pas de deux full of soaring lifts and gentle partnering between the soldier Don José (Alberto Velazquez) and his virginal girlfriend Micaëla (Gayeon Jung), from whom Carmen will soon steal his love.

In Act Two, however, "Carmen" ratchets up the heat. At a taverna, Carmen and her friends drink and dance with abandon that only intensifies once the charismatic bullfighter Escamillo (Dylan Gutierrez) appears on the scene.

Imposingly tall, he struts and preens and gyrates, his impossibly long legs seeming to encompass the whole stage. There’s an edge of menace to his presentation, as he dominates Jaiani, tossing her around in a dance of dark seduction. Jaiani is on stage the entire act, a tour de force of endurance and dynamic shifts, but it’s Gutierrez who steals the show. When, at the act’s climax, they have sex on a table, under a blood-red sky, Jaiani’s Carmen looks stunned as she acquiesces. There’s a rapey edge to the scene that underscores the persistent question: What exactly does Carmen want?

Act Three moves to Carmen’s wedding to Escamillo, to the familiar strains of the March of the Toreadors. Scarlett’s group work throughout is a highlight, giving the men’s corps in particular space for endless loose-limbed leaps and spins. Here a third dynamic is introduced, as the toreadors promenade with languid confidence in a toned-down interpretation of Escamillo’s macho sexuality. Carmen is clearly unhappy, pulling away from her husband as he roughly pushes her aside. She turns toward the audience, eyes wide, and the director’s hand becomes clear in a wrenching solo heavy with fear and regret. When Don José returns to beg for the return of her affections, he is rebuffed and explodes with rage. Dragging Carmen across the stage by her hair, he stabs her, and the curtain falls.

There’s so much about "Carmen" that feels contemporary: questions of sexual liberation, violence against women, class struggle, the fight against fascism. At its core lies a painfully topical question: What makes a young man kill? But Scarlett plays it straight; Don José’s conversion is uncomplicated (and feels unearned). Don José does not turn to violence because he’s a cog in an oppressive machine. He murders, in time-honored fashion, because a woman rejected him.

The Joffrey dancers are, as ever, wondrous: precise, athletic, lyrical, and suffused with an apparent joy in their craft. The production design, by Jon Bausor, for the Norwegian National Ballet’s 2015 world premiere, is gorgeous, all rustic minimalism and muted tones, save for splashes of red and black. But for all its beauty and power, this "Carmen" feels like a missed opportunity to do more to meet the moment.