I don’t think there are words to express how exhilerating it was to become one of opera’s fiercest women last week. It has been an absolute privilege to peel back the layers of this vivid character alongside such talented colleagues, particularly Max Lawrie as Don José, Louis Wilson as Escamillo and Anna-Luise Wagner as Micaela.
There is something at the very core of Carmen that I deeply admire. She is a woman who needs no one but herself, and who is absolutely resolute in demanding independance. It is her refusal to bend that leads to her tragic end, but at the very last, it makes her powerful. She dies rather than make herself beholden to another.
‘Libre elle est née, et libre elle mourra!’
I would like to thank Oliver Cope (conductor) and especially Eleanor Burke (director), whose vision I really believed in. The last two months have been a huge journey for me vocally, but even more so dramatically, a journey I could not have made without her pointing the way.
