Soon after she has left Don José arrives with the new guard. Seeing he isn’t there, she leaves, intending to return later. Peasant girl, Micaëla, descends upon the scene on the hunt for her lover, the corporal Don José. The military are on watch outside a tobacco factory in Seville, waiting for the change of the guard.

Based on the novella by - Prosper Mérimée.

Librettists - Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy.

exerts irresistible visceral power… a thrilling evening that richly deserved its enthusiastic reception” to create a fiery new Carmen for The Grange Festival with one of the leading French conductors of his generation, Jean-Luc Tingaud. Annabel brings together the same team that produced Opera North’s critically acclaimed Andrea Chénier “…. It’s power to shock, enthral and astound audiences remains as razor sharp as it ever was.Īnnabel Arden and Joanna Parker are the distinctive director/designer team behind Glyndebourne’s sophisticated new Barber of Seville and Café Kafka for The Royal Opera House.

It seems impossible for this opera, written in 1875, to age. Is Carmen calculated or helpless in her own and Don Jose’s downfall? Is Don José a cold-blooded killer or merely an infatuated lover? Are Escamillo and Micaëla victims of or witnesses to these tragic events? Bizet’s scintillating music gets under your skin and transports you to the heart of this irresistible story.Ī dangerous opera of uncontrollable infatuations, hot headed violence and blistering passions. Telling this story presents tantalizing choices. Tragedy sits side-by-side with joie-de-vivre and wit, as Carmen – born free and unwilling to let anyone or anything clip her wings – remains true to herself to the bitter end. From that moment on, he knows there’s no going back and that his life will never be the same again.Ĭarmen, the opera, and Carmen, the woman, are both full of seductive paradoxes, but Bizet’s music conspires to carry us on a journey which allows the questions to remain in play throughout. And then one day, unannounced and unexpected, Carmen walks into his life. A dutiful, well-respected soldier, he has his mother’s blessing to marry the woman he’s sure he loves.

Carmen detroit opera house