Carmen is independent and won’t let anyone take her freedom. She makes her own decisions - nobody else! Carmen loves life. She lives entirely in the present, not in the past or the future. Carmen’s love has wings: when she loves someone, it is for precisely that moment and not for all eternity - her interest might turn to someone else the very next moment. Carmen quarrels and fights, she doesn’t shy away from the criminal milieu either, because property or standards of any kind don’t exist for her.
Carmen makes no secret about her way of life, and she does not hide what she does. Therefore, in her unpredictable way, she is honest. Anyone who throws her warnings to the wind because he transfers his own (romantic, sentimental, bourgeois, moral) expectations onto her and suffers as a result has only himself to blame. You’d better watch out! The libretto of Georges Bizet’s opera, from the writing workshop of the successful duo Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, is based on the novella of the same name by Prosper Mérimée, who was inspired by an authentic case: on one of his trips to Spain, he had visited the Basque Don José, who was awaiting his death sentence in a cell in Córdoba, and learnt his tragic life story. It tells of a hopeful young sergeant and culminates in the jealous murder of a certain Carmen. This story became one of the greatest and most successful operas of all time. However, Georges Bizet was not destined to experience the legendary world fame of his opera “Carmen”, as he died three months after the premiere in 1875.
Lydia Steier’s spectacular production from 2019 is now back on the programme.