Performer: Eric Dubin

On Monday, Gotham Chamber Opera presented Daniel Catán’s opera La hija de Rappaccini (“Rappaccini’s Daughter”) in the Cherry Esplanade at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

Some operagoers contend that Carmen, the fatalistic gypsy doomed to die, is unlikable. She antagonizes other women at the cigarette factory. She seduces men with abandon. She makes an inexperienced corporal of the guard fall for her, manipulates him into abandoning his military career for a life of smuggling, and then heartlessly turns him out like a pesky stray.