Carmen - Schedule, Program & Tickets

Though Carmen was a flop when it was first staged and probably hastened Bizet's death, it became a firm favourite with audiences throughout the world during the closing decades of the 19th century. The French composer based it on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée and his gypsy cigarette girl, with her indomitable sense of freedom and tragic fate, eventually attained immortality.

Stage director Calixto Bieito made his operatic debut with Carmen at the Peralada Festival back in 1999, just months before the Liceu reopened after the fire. His production has since been reprised in various theatres in Spain and abroad, including the Liceu. He sets the action in one of Spain's last colonies in North Africa, where blood and sweat flow together in Carmen's last, fatal encounter.

Subject to change.