LA Opera Opens 2026-27 Season With a Timid New 'Carmen'

Domingo Hindoyan made his debut as Music Director of LA Opera on Saturday night, opening the company's 2026-2027 season with a new Spanish Gothic production of Bizet's "Carmen" at The Music Center — and the result, per OperaWire's review, "lacked on several levels."

The gala atmosphere delivered more than the staging. Jennifer Lopez attended in a sheer Dolce and Gabbana coat, shown off to her 240 million Instagram followers. Patrons posed on the red carpet and watched flamenco in the outdoor plaza, though the company's website insists there's no wrong way to dress, excluding "meat dresses and swim trunks."

What went wrong with the conducting?

Few openings in opera are more famous than Carmen's prelude, but on this night it "played more like background music than a psychological welcome." The orchestra started soft and muffled, and that muted tendency persisted through the evening. Hindoyan refused to lean into Bizet's showier instincts, leaving the entr'actes (the orchestral interludes between acts) especially pale.

The restraint wasn't all loss. It gave the singers room to shape their interpretations, and the close of Act One — Carmen persuading Don José to free her from jail — carried a thoughtful intensity. Punchy accents registered as "an apt cross section between infatuation and manipulation." The review's verdict: not a satisfying debut, but grounds for optimism that Hindoyan considers every aspect of a production. What changes for the company depends on how he fares with different singers and material.

How did the staging hold up?

Director Thaddius Strassberger set his Carmen in a "Seville suspended between centuries" — a concept the review found overly vague rather than mysterious. Thin, flowing projections ran through the show, never ugly but cheapening an elaborate set, with imagery like smoke that distracted more than it supported the libretto.

The Spanish Gothic architecture had impressive depth, stretching across LA Opera's sizable stage. Yet the set lacked a "lived in" quality: ornaments sat in over-aligned symmetry that clashed with the opera's verve. The costumes were the exception. Designer Mattie Ulrich and her team drew the review's "MVPs of the night" label, with color schemes that blended uniformity and continuity, wardrobe changes tracking Don José's decline, and chorus attire conveying unease.

Who delivered on stage?

Rihab Chaieb's Carmen read more as a soothing matriarch than personified volatility. Her "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle" held "no surprises nor dynamism," and an oversteadiness persisted throughout, though her beautiful midrange soared in moments of vulnerability.

Joshua Guerrero grounded the production as a puppy-eyed Don José, a traditional main character audiences could follow. His sweetness in the Act One duet with Micaëla, "Parle-moi de ma mére!", made Don José's bad decisions all the more heartbreaking.

Kathleen O'Mara gave the strongest lead performance as Micaëla, her voice convincingly filling the auditorium — a unique attribute in this production. Liam James Karai played Escamillo for humor, "painting with shades of Will Ferrell," and nailed the high F4 in the Toreador Song. Karie Trigg stood out as Mercédès, her rich-widow line drawing memorable laughter.

The production's one glaring misfire in stage direction came at the end, when Strassberger heavily invoked the Virgin Mary during the final moments — a perplexing choice the review leaves unexplained by the drama around it.

What does this mean for the season?

The review likens the evening to the Los Angeles Dodgers: "exceptional components couldn't make up for a lack of sustainable pep." Thoughtful decisions were made at every level, and Hindoyan and company clearly have freedom to interpret rather than recreate norms — but the production "felt timid in presenting its uniqueness."

Choosing "Carmen" as the opener may itself be part of the problem, since the opera carries expectations that are hard to escape. The hope, the review concludes, is that Hindoyan's tenure grows into form with each passing production.