Carmen

A brief introduction:

Bizet’s Carmen has been described as ‘The first musical’ – a neat summary of all the ways the composer’s final opera was – and still is – thrillingly provocative.

Bizet created a heroine who smokes, drinks, and fights, seduces men then casts them aside when she is bored, a criminal with no moral scruples. He placed her at the centre of an opera whose libretto and music refuse to moralise or euphemise, instead giving us sweat and smoke and blood, human emotions uncensored and unrestrained. 

Carmen, the bad girl of the tobacco factory, gets what she wants. And what she wants is Don José, the soldier sent to discipline and imprison her. But when he allows Carmen to escape, he lights the fuse on a relationship that destroys even as it burns with obsession, setting the two lovers on a collision course that will reach its bloody climax in the bullring.

Why not to miss it:

Tony Award-winning director Diane Paulus’ production is Glyndebourne’s first Carmen for nearly a decade – a bold staging that strips the story back to its bones: a rough, rule-breaking drama playing out in society’s fringes, shadows and forgotten places. Praised for its ‘intelligent and original’ perspective on the story (Evening Standard), as well its ‘energy’ and ‘power’ (Daily Express), with ‘sizzling’ choreography (OperaWire) by Jasmin Vardimon, it’s a gut-punch of a show with plenty to say. 

Danielle de Niese leads the first cast in this first revival of Paulus’s staging – the first opportunity to see the soprano perform the role in the UK.

A great moment to look out for:

Carmen’s entrance is marked by some of opera’s best-known music: a Habanera dance (originally from Cuba), as sensual and exotic as the heroine herself. Bizet supposedly rewrote Carmen’s opening aria 13 times before he was happy, and the final result is hypnotic: a sinuous melody (the central triplet bends time in a languorous, sexy kind of way) curls and arches over a strutting rhythm, before opening out into a bold refrain.

The relatively unmoving harmony gives a sense of hypnotism: we are rooted to the spot, just where Carmen wants us to be. As with so much of Carmen’s music, this is no musical confession of character; Carmen is putting on a performance minutely calculated to charm and delight her audience.

Cast and creative team:

Star soprano Danielle de Niese makes her UK role debut as Carmen – a role she debuted internationally in Sydney in 2025 in an ‘incandescent’ (Limelight) and ’emotionally complex’ performance (The Guardian) . Tunisian-Canadian mezzo Rihab Chaieb returns to the production to lead the second cast after her ‘utterly convincing’ and ‘beautifully sung’ account (The Telegraph) in 2024.

Tenors Atalla Ayan and Evan LeRoy Johnson – both Glyndebourne regulars – share the role of Don José, and sopranos Elsa Benoit and Vuvu Mpofu sing Micaëla. Operalia prize-winner Dmitry Chebylokov is Escamillo. Ben Glassberg – formerly Principal Conductor of the Glyndebourne Tour – returns to conduct the London Philharmonic Orchestra

To find out more about production support for Festival 2027 click here
or contact our Director of Development, Helen McCarthy for an informal chat:
call 01273 815032 or email helen.mccarthy@glyndebourne.com

Main image: Berena Alvarez/Stocksy. Image design by Louise Richardson