Carmen Doesn’t Die: She Shoots Don Jose!
At the end of a new production of the Bizet opera at the Maggio Musicale theater in Florence, instead of being knifed by Don José, Carmen steals his gun and shoots him. Why not? I once saw a “Tosca” in which Monserrat Caballe didn’t jump off the parapet to her death; she merely walked offstage. And there have been productions of “La Boheme” and “La Traviata” in which Mimi and Violetta didn’t expire but rose from their sickbeds.
