Carmen Tickets

The libretto for Carmen was written by Ludovic Halevy and Henri Meilhac, and in 1875 it saw its first production at the Paris Opera-Comique, where it ran for a few months without garnering popular or critical acclaim. Bizet died the same year at age thirty-six, never knowing that this work would one day get the recognition it deserved. When it premiered in Vienna towards the end of the same year, the response was incredible—audiences went berserk and critics wrote rave reviews. Carmen has become one of the most loved and frequently performed operas since then, standing at number four on North America's list of the operas most performed in the continent.

The opera is set in Seville, where Carmen works at a tobacco factory. As the opera begins, Carmen's character is first revealed when the young soldiers on duty near the factory flirt with Carmen and the other girls who are leaving after the day's work. This situation is the opening of one of the most popular songs in the history of opera, "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle," also known as the "Habanera." The song could be said to be the essence of Carmen's story. In the song, Carmen calls love a free-spirited gypsy child, headstrong and rebellious. Carmen's victim, the love-struck Don Jose, is so taken with Carmen's seductive charm that he neglects all his vows and duties—to his mother, to Micaela, his fiancée in the village, and finally to the military in which he is enlisted. Once Don Jose is completely under her spell, Carmen rejects him for a toreador. The story ends in tragedy.

Carmen's music has a romantic sweep like no other. It portrays a lofty world, imbued with the fearless pursuit of passion. The flip side of this is the disastrous taste of the forbidden, the vicious circle of temptation which becomes a way to self-destruct. Carmen the opera has never failed to impress audiences, and tickets for Carmen the Opera are a hot commodity almost everywhere it has been performed.