Carmen is working at a cigarette factory when she meets a soldier called Don José. Dazzled, he deserts his fiancé, Micaëla, and follows Carmen to the smugglers’ camp where she lives.

Carmen, a free spirit, quickly becomes bored and falls for another man, the famous toreador Escamillo. Consumed by jealousy, Don José murders Carmen outside the bullfighting arena in Seville while thousands cheer Escamillo on to victory.

Passion, love, enduring melodies and moving rhythms in four acts. Georges Bizet’s Carmen was not always destined for success. Though the tide has turned completely now, its world premiere in Paris in 1875 was a fiasco. Tragically, Bizet died three months later at the age of 36 never knowing that, from its second production, it would become one of the most successful and popular operas in the world.