CarmenNew production

There is arguably no stronger motive for hatred and murder than disenchanted love. In Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen, the simple soldier Don José becomes a murderer in a matter of moments. When he meets the attractive Carmen, he falls desperately in love with her – Don José commits himself to her for the rest of his life. But Carmen soon turns to the torero Escamillo. All of Bizet’s characters move between worlds in life, criss-crossing a dangerously explosive field of tension between attraction and rejection, between seriousness and play, between lust and self-sacrifice, duty and desire.

Bizet's Carmen has lost none of its fascination thanks to its relentless drama and the elemental effect of its melodicism. «This is a masterpiece in the truest sense, one of those rare compositions that reflect to the highest degree the musical aspirations of an entire age», Tchaikovsky once wrote. But the bourgeois audience at the 1875 premiere at the Opéra Comique in Paris initially reacted with disapproval to Bizet’s work. It was perceived as too garish and too immoral. In her anarchic desire for freedom and her lustfully lived femininity, the title character represented a danger to the established order. The opera soon began its triumphal march and became an operatic icon of the modern era.

Stage director Andreas Homoki combines the material's timelessness with a concrete theatrical situation: the starting point for his production is the place of its premiere, the Opéra Comique. Bizet’s work, in its playfully open form and multilayered theatrical levels, is tangibly connected to the genre cultivated on that stage. The up-and-coming mezzo-soprano Marina Viotti, born in Lausanne, makes her debut as Carmen. One can also look forward to the star tenor Saimir Pirgu - closely associated with the Zurich Opera House - as Don José. Łukasz Goliński is currently in demand worldwide as Escamillo. Bizet's tremendously evocative score still offers untapped interpretive potential - General Music Director Gianandrea Noseda is sure to elicit new sounds from this oft-performed work.

On June 17, 2023 the official ticket sale for the season 23/24 starts. Friends, subscribers, and shareholders can take advantage of their advance purchase rights one week earlier.