Carmen

Georges Bizet

  • Act 1 i 2

    1h30 min.

  • Intermission

    ca. 25 min.

  • Act 3

    1h

Duration: ca. 3h

  • Performance cancelled
  • Performance cancelled
  • Performance cancelled
  • Performance cancelled
  • Performance cancelled

Opera in four acts
Libretto: Henri Meilhac, Ludovic Halévy
World premiere: 3 March 1875, Paris
Premiere of this production: 7 June 2018, Polish National Opera, Teatr Wielki, Warsaw
In the original French with Polish surtitles

Nineteenth-century Seville – a rather trendy destination in the world of opera. The story revolves around Carmen, a Gypsy girl (today we would say, a Roma girl), an object (today we would avoid such a term altogether) of desire of all men in the area. Carmen hands the deathly flower to a corporal by the name of Don José. A fight breaks out, the woman entices the soldier with a promise of love. He lets her escape, for which he is imprisoned in solitary confinement. The eponymous heroine seduces men and plays them against one another. Like a pure element, she sweeps through the lives of people she encounters on her path. Extreme emotions and desires are the driving force here, of course, yet if we look closer, we would find darkness. The director, Andrzej Chyra, thrillingly reveals to us two sides of his Carmen: colourful and sensual as if channelling a Latin music video, while also dark and steely, reminiscent of a spectral megapolis construction site. We might even take the liberty of counting also Carmen’s father, Georges Bizet, among her victims – he died shortly following the premiere, in 1875. The masterpiece, innovative for its time, was received with coldness and disregard.

Cast

Credits

Chorus and Orchestra of the Polish National Opera
Władysław Skoraczewski Artos Children’s Choir

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Sponsors

  • Patrons of the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera

  • Partners of the Opera Academy

  • Partners of Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera

  • Technological partner

  • Media patrons