Carmen

About the event

Opera by Georges Bizet

The freedom-loving Carmen is desired by all men. Although none of their relationships last, the soldier Don José falls madly in love with her after she coquettishly throws a flower at his feet.

He deserts, renounces a budding relationship with Micaëla, a girl from his village, and joins Carmen's band of smugglers. This time too, Carmen's feelings grow cold and she is only interested in the bullfighter Escamillo. An argument between Don José and Carmen escalates in front of the arena: Filled with jealousy, Don José kills his former lover.

When Carmen was premiered, the region of the plot - Andalusia - was dangerous, certainly without any tourist idyll. In order to recreate the original atmosphere of the material, Calixto Bieito searched for a setting in Spain that corresponded to Andalusia at the time. He found what he was looking for in the African part of Spain, in Ceuta: the prevailing mixture of poverty, smuggling, lack of prospects, refugees and soldiers inspired Bieito to create this production. We experience a society characterized by violence, which nevertheless tries to wrest a certain joy, beauty, freedom and love from life.

For this production, we recommend a minimum age of 14.

»This music seems perfect to me. It is light, flexible, polite. It is amiable, it doesn't sweat. Without a grimace! Without falseness! Without the lie of grand style! She is so unaffected and sincere that I have practically learned her by heart from the very beginning.« (Friedrich Nietzsche)

The Viennese premiere of Carmen in today's Staatsoper (1875) was the first performance of the work outside France. Moreover, it was only with this Viennese premiere that this opera achieved its international breakthrough.

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(Source: wiener-staatsoper.at)

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