Bizet's scandal-provoking Carmen, now among the most performed operas in the world, returns to the Main Stage at Covent Garden this autumn.
The Royal Opera stages Damiano Michieletto’s production of Bizet’s Carmen at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden from Thursday 29 October 2026. It is now among the most performed operas in the world.
Carmen opened at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 3 March 1875. The Opéra-Comique was a family theatre, where fathers bought tickets to take their daughters to meet suitors.
Bizet gave it a heroine who smokes, works in a cigarette factory, sleeps with whom she chooses and is stabbed to death on stage. The reviews were poor. Bizet died suddenly after the 33rd performance, aged 36, believing he had failed.
Almost every number in the score is famous, and the Habanera, the Seguidilla and the Toreador Song all do plot work. The title role needs a mezzo who can act with her back to the audience. Nietzsche adopted the opera as the antidote to Wagner and said it made him a better philosopher.
Michieletto’s staging runs on the Main Stage until Saturday 21 November 2026, and is relayed to cinemas during the run. It overlaps Manon in the same house, which puts Bizet’s doomed woman and MacMillan’s on one stage in one season.