WHEN BALTIMORE OPERA general director Michael Harrison changed his mind and decided he wanted a new production of "Carmen," he had to look no farther than his next door neighbor for a set designer.
Just over the fence from his Reservoir Hill home lives Soledad Salame, a Chilean-born artist.
"He asked me what I thought of doing 'Carmen,'" Salame said. After they talked for several days, Salame said, "'yes, I'd be so happy to do this.'"
In little more than a month's time, Salame designed a series oabstract scenery for Georges Bizet's well-known, four-act opera, which will open Baltimore Opera's 40th season on Oct. 13.
Drawing on her experience as a painter and sculptor, Salame created designs for painted murals, fabric hangings, sculptural pieces, and transparencies that she hopes will provide a strong visual complement to the music drama.
"What I've tried to do is concentrate more on the universal ide of the opera," says Salame. "I try to keep some of the reality of the time of the story and synthesize it with what is living today."
Harrison, who worked with Salame to develop the concept, said her scenic design falls somewhere between an abstract approach and a literal representation of the story. "I like to call it presentational," says Harrison.
If her work at a recent show at Maryland Art Place is any indication, her "Carmen" will use strong, rich colors in a style that is abstract while still resembling realistic images.
When Baltimore Opera's season was announced last June, the scenery for "Carmen" was to be rented from the Cincinnati Opera. A new production was originally planned, but financial pressures dictated that the company trim expenses for the 1990-91 season.
The most publicized casualty was a new production of "Tristan ** und Isolde," which was withdrawn in favor of a concert of Wagner operatic excerpts.
"When I decided I didn't really want to live with the Cincinnati production for the opening of our 40th season, I thought we could do an abstract "Carmen" because it was not only something we could afford, but it was more practical for the Lyric [Opera House] stage," Harrison says.
"Carmen," the story by Prosper Merimee that Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halevy fashioned into a libretto for Bizet, is set in 19th century Seville and follows the exploits of the alluring Carmen, a gypsy girl who wins the heart of Don Jose from the peasant girl Micaela only to later abandon him for the bullfighter Escamillo. (Baltimore Opera will perform the edition that uses the composed recitatives of Ernest Guiraud, which replaced the spoken dialogue of the original version which premiered at the Opera-Comique in Paris in 1875.)
