Spanish Love Triangle

Spanish Love Triangle

Before “Sex and the City” Samantha put the panache back in promiscuity, the sultry libertine of choice was the hard-hearted gypsy at the center of George Bizet’s revered opera Carmen. She seduces the impressionable Don José and then casts him aside for the guy in the toreador pants (Escamillo), who’s actually a bullfighter, not just a trendy dresser. For the title role, the Florentine Opera taps Audrey Babcock, previously seen here in 2010’s Rigoletto. Rising star and crossover sensation Noah Stewart plays Don José. Carmen (Oct. 26 and 28). Florentine Opera. Marcus Center for the Performing Arts. Uihlein Hall. 929…

Before “Sex and the City” Samantha put the panache back in promiscuity, the sultry libertine of choice was the hard-hearted gypsy at the center of George Bizet’s revered opera Carmen. She seduces the impressionable Don José and then casts him aside for the guy in the toreador pants (Escamillo), who’s actually a bullfighter, not just a trendy dresser. For the title role, the Florentine Opera taps Audrey Babcock, previously seen here in 2010’s Rigoletto. Rising star and crossover sensation Noah Stewart plays Don José.


Carmen
(Oct. 26 and 28). Florentine Opera. Marcus Center for the Performing Arts. Uihlein Hall. 929 N. Water St., 414-291-5700, florentineopera.org. 

Paul Kosidowski is a freelance writer and critic who contributes regularly to Milwaukee Magazine, WUWM Milwaukee Public Radio and national arts magazines. He writes weekly reviews and previews for the Culture Club column. He was literary director of the Milwaukee Repertory Theater from 1999-2006. In 2007, he was a fellow with the NEA Theater and Musical Theater Criticism Institute at the University of Southern California. His writing has also appeared in American Theatre magazine, Backstage, The Boston Globe, Theatre Topics, and Isthmus (Madison, Wis.). He has taught theater history, arts criticism and magazine writing at Marquette University and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.