Carmen Suite - Wien - 2027

Volksoper Wien, Wien

Ballets by Eno Peci and Alberto Alonso

In a new creation, Eno Peci explores those moments before a decision—moments marked by doubt, pressure, and hesitation. *Burden Loops* is not about finding the “right path,” but about living in a state where the decision itself becomes a test of endurance. The dancers, too, find themselves in a moment of pause within their movement vocabulary—between anticipation and uncertainty, the urge to move and a lack of direction. Their bodies become a means of expressing the tension between the call to action and an uncertain outcome.

“Sometimes I thought: Why did Bizet write an opera? This must be dance!” said the legendary prima ballerina Maya Plisetskaya about the very work she herself would one day dance in a production by the Cuban choreographer Alberto Alonso, going on to celebrate true triumphs with it.

Set to an arrangement by Rodion Shchedrin—who, through his percussive and pointed instrumentation, imbues Bizet’s composition with a new spirit—Alonso created a truly expressionistic choreography. Set in a bullfighting arena—whose animal symbolism Alonso links to the strength and power that define Carmen—the choreographer focuses entirely on a woman who wants to live independently. Thus, the stage becomes not only the setting for a love triangle, but also for an existential struggle for freedom, passion, and self-determination.