Carmen is a powerful portrait of a fiercely independent woman who insists on her freedom and defies social conventions, even at the price of her tragic fate. In Jean-Louis Grinda’s roduction, the story is set in 1875, the year the opera was first performed. A bullring dominates the stage, filling it with passion, jealousy, and power struggles.
Act I
A square in Seville
Morales and his soldiers are standing around, when Micaela, a shy young girl approaches, looking for one of the soldiers- Don José. As the soldiers are frightening her away, a mounted guard, led by the officer Zuniga and corporal José, arrive. José hears of the young girl who was looking for him and recognizes Micaela, his childhood sweetheart from his village. When the bell sounds, summoning the girls of the cigarette factory to their break, Carmen appears, brazenly addresses the men and tries to attract the attention of José, the only man to ignore her, by throwing him a flower. After hesitations, José picks up the flower. When Micaela returns, she brings José a letter from his mother and some money his mother saved for him. Shouts are heard from the factory and the square fills with people. apparently, Carmen has had an argument with one of the workers and stabbed her. Zuniga has her arrested by José and then tries to interrogate her, though he soon loses patience and orders her imprisonment. Carmen sings to José, seducing him and bewitching him to let her escape.
Act II
The tavern of Lilas Pastia
Carmen and her gypsy friends Frasquita and Mercedes are singing and dancing. Outside, the crowd sings the praises of Escamillo, the toreador. Carmen mesmerizes Escamillo, who tries to talk to her, but she is only thinking about José. He has been jailed after letting her escape, and now is about to be released. As the toreador departs, the smugglers Dancairo and Remendado join the girls and ask for their help with the upcoming missions. The smugglers want to leave with the girls, but Carmen wants to wait for José. The smugglers suggest that she will encourage him to join them. As José arrives, Carmen dances for him and persuades him to join the gypsies, but he refuses. When Zuniga appears, the two men fight and the smugglers rush back in to separate them. Eventually, after attacking his commander, José has no other choice but to join the smugglers.
Act III
Several months later in the Mountains
Since joining the smugglers, José and Carmen’s relationship has deteriorated. When he tells her that his mother lives in a nearby village, she mocks him that he ought to return to his mother. Meanwhile, Frasquita and Mercedes reading their fortunes from the cards and see great fortune and great love. Carmen joins them, but her cards are foretelling her and José’s death. The smugglers go away, leaving José to guard the camp. Micaela appears looking for José, determeant to save him from Carmen, exactly as Escamillo arrives to the camp too. He introduces himself to José, and tells him he came to find Carmen, with whom he is in love. José challenges Escamillo to a knife-fight, and the smugglers return and separate them. Escamillo invites the smugglers to his next bullfight and when all are ready to leave Remendado discovers Micaela. She tells José that his mother has sent her to plead him to come home with her. Carmen urges him to leave but he swears he would not let her go off with her new lover. Micaela, however, in a last desperate effort to persuade him, tells José that his mother is dying and longs to see him. He decides to leave with Micaela, threatening Carmen that they will meet again.
Act IV
A Square in Seville
It is the day of the great bullfight in Seville, and the square outside the bullring is a scene of great bustle and activity. Escamillo appears, Carmen on his arm, and then leaves to prepare for the bullfight. Carmen is warned by Frasquita and Mercedes that José is hiding in the crowd and that she should be careful. She dismisses the warnings and remains in the square. When José arrives, he tells her he has not come to threaten her but to beg for her love, yet she rejects him cruelly. The more heated the argument between them, the closer the bullfight gets to its end. After Carmen contempuously throws the ring he gave her at José, he stabs her to death, just as Escamillo subdues the bull inside the ring.
Want to know more about the opera you’re going to see? Want to discover the secrets behind the scenes? Want to meet the artists after the performance? The Israeli Opera allows you to enhance your operatic experience with a variety of events before and after the performance.
An hour before each opera performance begins, a 30-minute introductory lecture is held in the auditorium. The lecture, given by representatives of the opera team, sometimes focuses on the opera and its historical background, sometimes on the musical aspects of the work, sometimes on the production itself, and allows viewers to receive additional information in preparation for watching the opera a short time before the performance begins.
The lecture begins one hour before the start of each opera performance.
Lecture length: 30 minutes.
Admission is free for opera ticket holders that day.
A pre-show lecture will be held about an hour before each show begins.
The performance is over. It’s already late. And yet the experience was exciting, challenging, moving. It’s time to meet some of the participants in an informal gathering. Come listen and share. Come ask questions. Come get to know the soloists up close. An extraordinary opportunity to get closer to the artists who just thrilled you on stage.
An Opera Talkback takes place at the end of the performance on the second level of the Opera House’s foyer.
Talkback duration: about half an hour.
The talkbacks take place several times during each production. Admission is free.
The talkbacks will take place immediately after the show on the following dates:
A unique experience: Being part of the preparations for curtain rise.
You know how there are moments that are just the right time? The hour and a half before the curtain rises is exactly that moment – when the house awakens to life, when the artists prepare, and when the stage transforms from an empty space into a world of magic.
Our special tour invites you to be part of this magical moment. You’ll see the house at its most vibrant – when the technicians do their final checks, when the lighting prepares to tell the story, when the production truly comes to life. This isn’t just a visit – it’s a glimpse into the living process of creating opera.
You’ll discover the hidden spaces of the house, meet the people behind the magic, and understand how every small detail becomes part of the grand creation. At the end of the tour, you’ll enter the auditorium already knowing the story of the place and ready to experience the performance in a completely new way.
A unique experience: Being part of the preparations for curtain rise.
Tour duration: 45 minutes of pure magic.
Timing: An hour and a quarter before the performance begins.
Advance ticket purchase required, limited tickets available at this Link
Seeing how magic is born is almost as beautiful as the magic itself
July 2027
