OPERA DE MONTE-CARLO CARMEN

Opera in four acts
Music by Georges Bizet (1838-1875) 
Libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy based on Prosper Mérimée's short story
Premiere: Paris, Opéra-Comique, hall Favart, 3 March 1875

It is hard to understand why Carmen was a failure when first performed at the Opéra Comique in 1875. The reason must have been its story – an impossible love between Don José, an honourable but in many ways naive soldier, and Carmen, a free-spirited gypsy girl, who arouses sympathy because of her blunt honesty and independency from social conventions, which she defends to the death.

Moreover, Georges Bizet’s music contains a great number of song- and dancelike pieces which are based on Spanish folklore, rather than the traditional couplets and arias that audiences expected at the time.

At least we can forgive them for their initial disapproval because Carmen was performed a hundred times more in Paris during the next ten years and has remained popular ever since.

Conductor | Marc Leroy-Calatayud

Mise en espace | Vanessa d'Ayral de Sérignac

Choirmaster | Stefano Visconti

Don José | Benjamin Bernheim

Escamillo | Erwin Schrott

Zuniga | Andrew Moore

Moralès | Anas Seguin

Carmen | Marina Viotti

Micaëla | Sandra Hamaoui

Frasquita | Marie Lombard

Mercédès | Axelle Saint-Cirel

Le Dancaïre | Pierre Doyen

Le Remendado | Loic Felix