Carmen - French Opera

Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet.

The opera premiered at the Opéra Comique of Paris on March 3, 1875, but the opening run was a failure, the work being denounced by the majority of critics. Shortly after the composer's death only three months later, the production in Vienna (October 1875) began its path to worldwide popularity.

Bizet’s final opera not only transformed the opera-comique genre that had been static for half a century, it virtually killed it. Within a few years, the traditional distinction between opera and opera-comique (light-hearted, bourgeois and conversational with spoken dialogue) disappeared beyond recovery.

Since the 1880s it has been one of the world's most performed operas and a staple of the operatic repertoire. Carmen appears as number four on Opera America's list of the 20 most-performed operas in North America.

The story is set in Seville, Spain, circa 1830, and concerns the eponymous Carmen, a beautiful Gypsy with a fiery temper. Free with her love, she woos the corporal Don José, an inexperienced soldier. Their relationship leads to his rejection of his former love, mutiny against his superior, and joining a gang of smugglers. His jealousy when she turns from him to the bullfighter Escamillo leads him to murder Carmen.