Reports of the “disastrous” premiere of Georges Bizet’s Carmen have been greatly exaggerated. Some in the Paris audience were shocked by the eponymous heroine’s forthright sexuality, and there were some scathing reviews. But the opera ran for 45 performances that first year, and, even though set in Spain, it became the most enduringly popular French opera. Its tunes are hard to beat.
Subsequent productions have reimagined the doomed Carmen, her pathologically obsessed lover and a flashy bullfighter in Francisco’s Spain and today’s U.S. Southwest. But, marking the opera’s 150th anniversary, the Dallas Opera is opening its 2025-26 season with sets and costumes based on designs from the Paris premiere. And while most current Carmens are done with sung dialogue subsequently composed by Ernest Guiraud, the opera is being performed here, as conceived, with spoken dialogue.
Mezzo Marina Viotti stars as Carmen, with Saimir Pirgu as Don José, Teresa Perrotta as Micaëla and Gihoon Kim as Escamillo. Music director Emmanuel Villaume conducts the Dallas Opera Orchestra and Chorus.
Details
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8 p.m. Oct. 17 (note later start); 2 p.m. Oct. 19 and 26; 7:30 p.m. Oct. 22 and 25 at Winspear Opera House, 2403 Flora St. $19 to $458. 214-443-1000, dallasopera.org.
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