2023 / AROP evening / Opera

31 Jan.

Carmen

Opéra Bastille

19h30

Duration

2h55

Dress Cocktail attire

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1st part

19h30

Intermission cocktail

20h55

2nd part

21h25

End of the performance

22h25

At the premiere of Carmen on March 3rd 1875 at the Opéra‑ Comique, the audience, shocked by its “Castillian wantonness”, cried scandal! Georges Bizet, who died three months later, never knew that his opera was to become one of the most widely performed in the world. Although the success of this work can be attributed to its unforgettable melodies, it also owes much to the independent character of the celebrated cigarette factory worker: “Carmen will never give in. Born free, she will die free”, sings the heroine to Don José at the end of the opera. Her irrepressible liberty, coupled with the necessity to live on a knife’s edge, ever more intensely, is captured by Calixto Bieito’s production as by none other. From Mérimée’s original character, Bieito’s Carmen retains her profoundly Iberian contours and the ardent temperament of a woman living off small‑time trafficking. This rebel, however, is a thoroughly contemporary creature. A tantalising and indomitable vamp, she lives life in the fast lane, in an urgent desire to fully exist.

Carmen

Production de 1982 - Calixto Bieito