Opera de Monte-Carlo: Carmen
Opera de Monte-Carlo: Carmen by Georges Bizet will be on stage of Salle des Princes – Grimaldi Forum Monaco on Friday 20 November 2026 – at 7.30 pm.
With Choir of the Opéra de Monte-Carlo
Rainier III Academy Children’s Choir
Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo
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
