Publication of Carmen

Carmen is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet, based on a novella by Prosper Mérimée, with a libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. It was first performed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in 1875, and tells of Carmen, a free-spirited Gypsy woman working in a cigarette factory in Seville, and her fateful relationship with the soldier Don José and the bullfighter Escamillo. Audiences and critics were shocked by its realism, its sensuality and its tragic ending, and the opera had only a modest success at first. Bizet died a few months after the premiere, never knowing how popular it would become. Later productions in Vienna and elsewhere made it one of the most frequently performed operas in the world, and its Habanera and Toreador Song are widely known.

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