Carmen is an opera in four acts written by the French composer Georges Bizet. The story was created by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on a novella by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first performed in Paris on March 3, 1875, by the Opéra-Comique. Its unusual style surprised and upset the audience at the time. Bizet died suddenly after the 33rd performance, not knowing that the opera would become widely loved within ten years. Carmen is now one of the most popular operas in the classical music world. Famous songs from the opera include the "Habanera" and "Seguidilla" from the first act, and the "Toreador Song" from the second act.
The opera is part of a genre called opéra comique, which includes both music and spoken dialogue. It takes place in southern Spain and follows the story of Don José, a soldier who is tricked by Carmen, a strong-willed gypsy. José leaves his girlfriend and his job to be with Carmen, but she later chooses another man, a famous bullfighter named Escamillo. In a fit of jealousy, José kills Carmen. The opera's portrayal of working-class life, moral challenges, and the murder of the main character were new and controversial for French opera.
Most reviews after the premiere were negative, and the French public was not interested at first. Carmen became well-known through performances outside France and was not shown again in Paris until 1883. After that, it grew in popularity both in France and around the world. Some later writers say Carmen connects the tradition of opéra comique with the realistic style of Italian opera from the late 1800s.
The music in Carmen is praised for its beautiful melodies, harmonies, and the way it creates mood and emotion. Bizet was still working on changes to the score when he died. Later changes, such as replacing spoken dialogue with musical recitatives written by Ernest Guiraud, mean there is no single official version of the opera. Carmen has been recorded many times since the first recording in 1908, and its story has been adapted for film and theater many times.
Background
In the 1860s, despite winning a prestigious award called the Prix de Rome, the French composer Georges Bizet had difficulty getting his operas performed in Paris. The city’s two main opera houses, the Opéra and the Opéra-Comique, focused on traditional plays and operas, limiting chances for young French composers. Bizet’s partnership with Léon Carvalho, who managed the independent Théâtre Lyrique, allowed him to stage two operas: Les pêcheurs de perles (1863) and La jolie fille de Perth (1867). However, neither opera was widely successful with audiences.
After the Franco-Prussian War ended in 1871, Paris’s artistic scene revived, offering Bizet more opportunities. His one-act opera Djamileh premiered at the Opéra-Comique in May 1872. Though it closed after 11 performances, it led to a commission for a full-length opera. The libretto (text) for this new work was to be written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, who had previously collaborated with Bizet on his student opera Le docteur Miracle (1856). Halévy was married to Bizet’s wife, Geneviève, and he and Meilhac were known for writing texts for operettas by Jacques Offenbach.
Bizet was excited about the Opéra-Comique commission and told his friend Edmund Galabert that he felt “the absolute certainty of having found my path.” The subject of the opera was discussed among Bizet, the librettists, and the theater’s management. Adolphe de Leuven, representing the Opéra-Comique, suggested several ideas, but Bizet rejected them politely. He proposed adapting the novella Carmen by Prosper Mérimée. Mérimée’s story, published in 1845 in the journal Revue des deux Mondes, combined travel and adventure themes. It may have been inspired by Mérimée’s travels in Spain in 1830 or by Alexander Pushkin’s 1824 poem The Gypsies, which Mérimée had translated. Some believe the story was based on a tale told to Mérimée by his friend, Countess Montijo. Bizet may have first read Carmen during his time in Rome from 1858 to 1860, as his journals mention studying Mérimée’s works during that period.
Roles
- The cast information was given by Curtiss from the original sheet music that includes piano and singing parts. The stage set designs were created by Charles Ponchard.
Instrumentation
The orchestra includes two flutes, which also play the piccolo, two oboes (with the second oboe also playing the cor anglais), two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, a harp, and string instruments. The percussion section includes timpani, side drum, triangle, tambourine, cymbals, castanets, and bass drum. The total number of musicians for the premiere was 62 or 57, depending on whether the pit trumpet and trombone players also performed off-stage music.
Synopsis
A square in Seville. On the right, a door to the tobacco factory. At the back, a bridge. On the left, a guardhouse.
A group of soldiers sit in the square, waiting for the guard to change and talking about the people walking by. Micaëla arrives, looking for José. Moralès tells her that José is not yet on duty and asks her to wait with them. She says she will come back later. José arrives with the new guard, and the crowd of children copies their movements.
As the factory bell rings, the cigarette workers come out and chat with young men in the crowd. Carmen enters and sings a bold song about love being wild and hard to control. The men ask her to choose a lover, and after teasing them, she throws a flower to Don José, who has been ignoring her but is now upset by her behavior.
As the women return to the factory, Micaëla comes back and gives José a letter and a kiss from his mother. He reads that his mother wants him to return home and marry Micaëla, who becomes shy and embarrassed. Just as José says he will follow his mother’s wishes, the women come out of the factory in a hurry. Zuniga, the officer, learns that Carmen attacked a woman with a knife. When asked, Carmen responds with mocking words. Zuniga orders José to tie her hands while he prepares a prison order. Alone with José, Carmen sings a song about dancing and passion with her lover in a tavern. Confused but drawn to her, José agrees to free her hands. As she is led away, she pushes her escort and runs off laughing. José is arrested for failing his duty.
Two months later, Carmen and her friends Frasquita and Mercédès entertain Zuniga and other officers in Pastia’s inn. Carmen is happy to learn that José has been released from two months of detention. Outside, a group announces the arrival of the toreador Escamillo. He enters and sings a song introducing himself, then tries to impress Carmen, who ignores him. Lillas Pastia moves the crowd and soldiers away.
When only Carmen, Frasquita, and Mercédès remain, smugglers Dancaïre and Remendado arrive and explain their plan to move stolen goods. Frasquita and Mercédès want to help, but Carmen refuses because she is waiting for José. After the smugglers leave, José arrives. Carmen dances for him, but her song is interrupted by a distant bugle call from the barracks. When José says he must return to duty, Carmen mocks him and shows him the flower he had received earlier. She asks him to leave with her, but he refuses. As he prepares to leave, Zuniga enters looking for Carmen. They fight, and Carmen calls her friends to stop Zuniga. Because José attacked a superior officer, he must now join Carmen and the smugglers.
A wild spot in the mountains.
Carmen and José arrive with the smugglers and their stolen goods. Carmen now treats José with scorn, telling him to return to his mother. Frasquita and Mercédès amuse themselves by reading their fortunes in cards. Carmen joins them and sees the cards predict her death and José’s. The smugglers leave to move their goods, and the women distract local officers. José is left behind on guard duty.
Micaëla arrives with a guide, looking for José and determined to rescue him from Carmen. She hides in fear when she hears a gunshot—it is José, who has shot an intruder who turns out to be Escamillo. José is happy to see the bullfighter but becomes angry when Escamillo says he is in love with Carmen. They fight, but are interrupted by the returning smugglers and women. Escamillo leaves, inviting everyone to his next bullfight in Seville. Micaëla is discovered. At first, José refuses to leave with her despite Carmen’s teasing, but he agrees when told his mother is dying. He leaves, promising to return. Escamillo is heard singing in the distance.
A square in Seville. At the back, the walls of an ancient amphitheatre.
Zuniga, Frasquita, and Mercédès are among the crowd waiting for the bullfighters. Escamillo enters with Carmen, and they express their love for each other. As Escamillo enters the arena, Frasquita and Mercédès warn Carmen that José is nearby, but Carmen is not afraid and is ready to speak with him. Alone, she is confronted by José, who pleads for her to return. As cheers come from the arena, José makes his final plea. Carmen throws away the ring he gave her and tries to enter the arena. José stabs her, and as Escamillo is celebrated by the crowd, Carmen dies. José kneels and sings a sorrowful song about Carmen. As the crowd leaves the arena, José admits he killed Carmen.
Creation
Meilhac and Halévy worked together for a long time and each had their own job: Meilhac wrote the dialogue, and Halévy wrote the verses. There is no clear record of when work began on Carmen. In 1873, Bizet and the two librettists were all in Paris and could easily meet, so there is little written information about how the collaboration started. The libretto followed the rules of opéra comique, with dialogue separating musical numbers. It changed the story from Mérimée's novella in several important ways. In the original, events happened over a longer time, and much of the story was told by José while he was in prison, waiting to be executed for killing Carmen. Micaëla did not appear in Mérimée's version, and Escamillo was only a minor character, a picador named Lucas who briefly loved Carmen. Carmen had a husband named Garcia, whom José killed during an argument. In the novella, Carmen and José were shown as much less sympathetic than in the opera. Bizet's biographer, Mina Curtiss, wrote that Mérimée's Carmen would have seemed "a very unlikable and hard to believe character" if her personality had not been changed and made more complex in the opera.
Rehearsals for Carmen were planned to start in October 1873, so Bizet began composing around January of that year. By summer, he had finished the music for the first act and possibly sketched more. At that point, according to Bizet's biographer, Winton Dean, "some problem at the Opéra-Comique happened," and the project was paused for a while. One reason for the delay may have been the difficulty in finding a singer for the title role. Another was a disagreement between the two directors of the theatre, Camille du Locle and Adolphe de Leuven, about whether to stage the work. De Leuven strongly opposed presenting such a bold story in what he considered a family-friendly theatre, fearing audiences would be scared away. He was assured by Halévy that the story would be softened, that Carmen's character would be made more gentle, and that Micaëla, described by Halévy as "a very innocent and chaste young girl," would balance Carmen's role. The gypsies would be shown as funny characters, and Carmen's death would be overshadowed by "triumphal processions, ballets, and joyous fanfares." De Leuven reluctantly agreed, but his continued dislike for the project led him to resign from the theatre early in 1874.
After the delays, Bizet seems to have started working on Carmen again early in 1874. He finished the draft of the composition—1,200 pages of music—in the summer, while staying at an artists' colony in Bougival, near Paris. He was happy with the result, telling a friend: "I have written a work that is clear and lively, full of color and melody." During rehearsals, which began in October, Bizet made many changes to the music—sometimes because the orchestra found some parts hard to play, sometimes to meet singers' needs, and sometimes to follow the theatre's requests. The vocal score Bizet published in March 1875 shows major differences from the version he sold to publishers in January 1875; the conducting score used at the premiere is different from both. There is no single official version, and musicologists disagree about which version best reflects Bizet's original intentions. Bizet also changed the libretto, rearranging scenes and adding his own verses where he felt the librettists had strayed too far from Mérimée's story. He rewrote the lyrics for Carmen's "Habanera" and the text of Carmen's solo in the third act card scene. He also changed the opening line of the "Seguidilla" in the first act.
Most of the characters in Carmen—soldiers, smugglers, Gypsy women, and secondary characters like Micaëla and Escamillo—are familiar types in opéra comique, though drawing them from working-class life was unusual. The two main characters, José and Carmen, are outside the genre's usual style. While they are shown differently from Mérimée's versions of a violent outlaw and a dishonest schemer, even in their softened forms, they do not match the norms of opéra comique. They are more like the realistic style, called verismo, that later composers like Puccini used.
Dean believes José is the central figure of the opera: "It is his fate rather than Carmen's that interests us." The music shows his gradual change, act by act, from an honest soldier to a deserter, a wanderer, and finally a murderer. In the first act, he is a simple countryman, musically linked to Micaëla. In the second act, he shows more toughness from his time in prison, but his obsession with Carmen has already taken control of his emotions. Dean describes him in the third act as a trapped animal who refuses to leave his cage even when the door is opened, torn by guilt, jealousy, and despair. In the final act, his music becomes serious and determined, showing his new sense of fate: "He will make one more appeal; if Carmen refuses, he knows what to do."
Carmen herself, says Dean, is a new kind of operatic heroine, representing a different kind of love—not the innocent type seen in the "spotless soprano" tradition, but something more powerful and dangerous. Her unpredictability, bravery, and love of freedom are shown in the music: "She is redeemed from any suspicion of vulgarity by her qualities of courage and fatalism so vividly realized in the music." Curtiss suggests that Carmen's character, both spiritually and musically, may reflect Bizet's own hidden desire for freedom, which his marriage limited. Harold C. Schonberg compares Carmen to "a female Don Giovanni. She would rather die than be false to herself." The character's dramatic personality and the range of emotions she must express require exceptional acting and singing skills. This has discouraged some of opera's most famous performers; Maria Callas recorded the role but never performed it on stage. The musicologist Hugh Macdonald notes that "French opera never produced another femme fatale as striking as Carmen," though she may have influenced some of Massenet's heroines. Macdonald suggests that outside the French repertoire, Richard Strauss's Salome and Alban Berg's Lulu "may be seen as distant, less direct descendants of Bizet's temptress."
Bizet was reportedly unimpressed with the music he wrote for Escamillo: "Well, they asked for ordure, and they've got it," he is said to have
Performance history
The search for a singer-actress to play Carmen started in mid-1873. The press thought Zulma Bouffar might be chosen, and she was possibly the writers’ favorite. She had sung main roles in many of Offenbach’s operas, but Bizet did not like her, and she was not chosen by du Locle because he thought she was not right for the role. In September, Marie Roze was asked to join the cast. She was famous for her performances at the Opéra-Comique, the Opéra, and in London. She refused the part when she learned she would have to die on stage. The role was then given to Célestine Galli-Marié, who agreed to work with du Locle after months of discussion. Galli-Marié was a difficult performer at times but supported Bizet when he refused to change the opera to please the management. At the time, people believed she and Bizet were in a romantic relationship during rehearsals.
The leading tenor role of Don José was given to Paul Lhérie, a rising star at the Opéra-Comique who had recently performed in works by Massenet and Delibes. Later, he became a baritone and in 1887 sang the role of Zurga in the first performance of Les pêcheurs de perles at Covent Garden. Jacques Bouhy, who played Escamillo, was a young baritone born in Belgium. He had already performed in challenging roles, such as Méphistophélès in Gounod’s Faust and Figaro in Mozart’s opera. Marguerite Chapuy, who sang Micaëla, was just starting her career. She briefly became a star at London’s Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The impresario James H. Mapleson called her “one of the most charming vocalists I have ever met.” However, she married and left the stage in 1876, refusing Mapleson’s money to return.
Rehearsals for the opera began in October 1874 but took longer than expected, so the premiere was delayed. The final rehearsals went well, and the first night was set for March 3, 1875. This date coincided with the announcement that Bizet had been named a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. The premiere was conducted by Adolphe Deloffre and attended by many important musical figures in Paris, including Massenet, Offenbach, Delibes, and Gounod. During the performance, Gounod was heard complaining that Bizet had copied a melody from his own opera for Micaëla’s aria. Halévy wrote in a letter that the first act was well received, with applause and curtain calls. The second act also went well at first, but after Escamillo’s song, the audience grew cold. In the third act, only Micaëla’s aria received applause, and the audience became uncomfortable. The final act was described as “glacial,” and Bizet felt only the support of a few friends. Later, critic Ernest Newman said the audience was shocked by the realistic and harsh portrayal of characters. According to composer Benjamin Godard, Bizet responded to praise by saying, “Don’t you see that these people didn’t understand a single word of the work I wrote for them?” Shortly after the premiere, Massenet sent Bizet a note saying, “How happy you must be—it’s a great success!”
The next day’s newspaper reviews were mostly negative. Some critics criticized the music as too loud and compared it to Wagner’s style. Others said the heroine was immoral, and Galli-Marié’s performance was called “the very incarnation of vice.” Some critics thought the opera was worse than traditional works by Auber and Boieldieu. Léon Escudier wrote that the music was “dull and obscure.” It seemed Bizet had failed to meet expectations, both from those who wanted something like Offenbach’s operas and from critics who expected a Wagner-style drama. A few critics, like poet Théodore de Banville, praised Bizet for creating a realistic story with real people instead of the usual “puppets” of the Opéra-Comique.
At the Opéra-Comique, Carmen did not excite the public. It shared the stage with Verdi’s more popular Requiem. The opera was often performed to nearly empty houses, even when tickets were given away for free. On June 3, the day after the 33rd performance, Bizet died suddenly of heart disease at the age of 36. That day was his wedding anniversary. The performance that night was canceled, but public interest briefly increased before the season ended. Du Locle brought Carmen back in November 1875 with the original cast, and it ran for 12 more performances until February 15, 1876. The total number of performances for the original production was 48. Tchaikovsky attended one of the later shows and wrote to his patron, Nadezhda von Meck, calling Carmen “a masterpiece in every sense of the word.” After the final performance, Carmen was not performed in Paris again until 1883.
Before his death, Bizet signed a contract for a production of Carmen by the Vienna Court Opera. For this version, first staged on October 23, 1875, his friend Ernest Guiraud replaced the original dialogue with recitatives to make it a “grand opera.” Guiraud also used music from Bizet’s L’Arlésienne suite to create a ballet for the second act. Shortly before the Vienna premiere, the opera’s director, Franz von Jauner, decided to mix the original dialogue with some of Guiraud’s recitatives. This hybrid version and the full recitative version became the standard for productions outside France for most of the next century.
Although it was different from Bizet’s original plan and had some criticism, the 1875 Vienna production was a big success. It was praised by both Wagner and Brahms. Brahms reportedly saw the opera twenty times and said he would have “gone to the ends of the earth to embrace Bizet.” The success in Vienna helped Carmen become famous worldwide. In February 1876, the opera began a run in Brussels at La Monnaie. It returned the next year with Galli-Marié in the title role and became a regular part of the Brussels repertoire. On June 17, 1878, Carmen was performed in London at Her Majesty’s Theatre, where Minnie Hauk started her long career as Carmen. A separate production at Covent Garden with Adelina Patti was canceled when Patti withdrew. The successful London performance, in Italian, was also well received in Dublin. On October 23, 1878, Carmen had its American premiere at the New York Academy of Music and was introduced to Saint Petersburg the same year.
Over the next five years, Carmen was performed in many cities across America and Europe. It was especially popular in Germany, where Chancellor Otto von Bismarck reportedly saw it 27 times, and where Friedrich Nietzsche said, “I became a better man when Bizet speaks to me.” Carmen was also praised
Music
Hervé Lacombe, in his study of 19th-century French opera, says that Carmen is one of the few works from that time that are still popular today. While he places the opera firmly within the long opéra comique tradition, Macdonald believes that the opera goes beyond this tradition because of its strong melodies and orchestration. Dean sees Bizet's main achievement as showing the story's events through music, rather than dialogue. He writes that few artists have expressed the pain of love and jealousy as clearly as Bizet. Dean places Bizet's realism in a different category from the verismo style of Puccini and others. He compares Bizet to Mozart and Verdi for their ability to connect with audiences through the emotions of their characters.
Bizet, who had never visited Spain, looked for Spanish music to make his opera sound authentic. Carmen's habanera is based on a traditional song called "El arreglito" by Spanish composer Sebastián Yradier (1809–65). Bizet believed this was a folk melody; when he learned it was more recent, he added a note in the vocal score to credit Yradier. He used a real folk song for Carmen's defiant "Coupe-moi, brûle-moi," while other parts, like the "Seguidilla," use rhythms and instruments from flamenco music. However, Dean insists that "[t]his is a French, not a Spanish opera"; the Spanish elements, while important, are only a small part of the music.
The prelude to act 1 combines three repeating themes: the entry of the bullfighters from act 4, the refrain from the Toreador Song in act 2, and a motif that represents both Carmen and the fate she symbolizes. This motif, played by clarinet, bassoon, cornet, and cellos over strings that vibrate quickly, ends the prelude with a sudden loud crescendo. When the curtain rises, a bright and cheerful mood is established, lasting through the opening scenes. The mock solemnity of the changing of the guard and flirtatious exchanges between townspeople and factory girls are followed by a mood shift when a short phrase from the fate motif announces Carmen's entrance. After her provocative habanera, with its persistent rhythm and key changes, the fate motif sounds fully when Carmen throws her flower to José before leaving. This action leads José to sing a passionate solo in A major, which Dean says marks a turning point in his musical portrayal. A softer mood returns briefly when Micaëla reappears and joins José in a duet with a warm clarinet and string accompaniment. The calm is broken by a noisy quarrel, Carmen's dramatic return, and her defiant interaction with Zuniga. After her beguiling "Seguidilla" provokes José to shout a high A sharp, Carmen's escape is preceded by a brief, unsettling return of a fragment from the habanera. Bizet revised this ending several times to strengthen its dramatic impact.
Act 2 begins with a short prelude based on a melody José will sing offstage before his next appearance. A festive scene in the inn is followed by Escamillo's dramatic entrance, with brass and percussion playing prominently while the crowd sings along. The quintet that follows is described by Newman as "of incomparable energy and musical wit." José's arrival leads to a long scene where he and Carmen exchange words; Carmen sings, dances, and plays castanets. A distant cornet call summoning José to duty is blended with Carmen's melody so it is barely heard. A soft reference to the fate motif on an English horn leads to José's "Flower Song," a flowing melody that ends very softly on a sustained high B-flat. José's insistence that he must return to duty despite Carmen's advances leads to a quarrel. The arrival of Zuniga, a fight, and José's entanglement in the lawless life are reflected in the triumphant hymn to freedom that ends the act.
The prelude to act 3 was originally intended for Bizet's L'Arlésienne score. Newman describes it as "a beautiful short piece with much interaction between wind instruments." As the act progresses, the tension between Carmen and José is clear in the music. In the card scene, the lively duet between Frasquita and Mercédès becomes ominous when Carmen intervenes; the fate motif underscores her premonition of death. Micaëla's aria, after she enters searching for José, is a traditional piece of deep emotion, preceded and followed by horn calls. The middle part of the act focuses on Escamillo and José, now rivals for Carmen's favor. The music shows their differences: Escamillo remains polite and ironic, while José is sullen and aggressive, as Newman notes. When Micaëla pleads with José to go with her to his mother, the harshness of Carmen's music reveals her unsympathetic side. As José leaves, vowing to return, the fate theme is briefly heard in the woodwind. The confident, offstage sound of Escamillo singing the toreador's refrain contrasts with José's growing desperation.
The final act begins with a lively orchestral piece based on Manuel García's short operetta El criado fingido. After the opening crowd scene, the bullfighters' march is led by children's voices; the crowd cheers for Escamillo before his short love scene with Carmen. The long finale, where José makes his final pleas to Carmen and is rejected, is interrupted by enthusiastic shouts from the bullfighting arena. As José kills Carmen, the chorus sings the Toreador Song offstage; the fate motif, which has appeared at key moments, is heard very loudly, along with a brief reference to the music from Carmen's card scene. José's final words of love and despair are followed by a long final chord, on which the curtain falls without further music or dialogue
Musical numbers
The numbers are taken from the vocal score (English edition) published by G. Schirmer Inc., New York, in 1958. This edition was based on Guiraud's 1875 arrangement.
Recordings
Carmen has been recorded many times. Early recordings from the 1890s used wax cylinders. A nearly complete performance in German was recorded in 1908 with Emmy Destinn in the title role. A complete version in French was recorded in 1911 by Opéra-Comique. Since then, many opera houses and artists have recorded the opera in studios and during live performances. Over the years, many versions have been praised and released again. From the mid-1990s, video recordings became available. These include David McVicar’s Glyndebourne production from 2002 and Royal Opera productions from 2007 and 2010. Each of these productions was designed by Francesca Zambello.
Adaptations
In 1883, the Spanish violinist and composer Pablo de Sarasate created a piece called the Carmen Fantasy for violin. This work was described as "clever and hard to play." In 1920, the Italian composer Ferruccio Busoni wrote a piano piece titled Piano Sonatina No. 6 (Fantasia da Camera super Carmen), which used music themes from Carmen. The Russian pianist Vladimir Horowitz performed his own piece, Variations on a Theme from Carmen (1926), throughout his career. In 1967, the Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin used parts of Carmen music to create a ballet called Carmen Suite. This ballet was written for his wife, Maya Plisetskaya, who was the principal ballerina of the Bolshoi Ballet at the time.
In 1983, the stage director Peter Brook made a version of Bizet’s opera called La Tragédie de Carmen. He worked with the writer Jean-Claude Carrière and the composer Marius Constant. This version lasted about 90 minutes and focused on four main characters. It removed large groups of singers and changed the main songs to be played by a small orchestra. Brook first presented it in Paris, and it has been performed in many cities since.
The character "Carmen" has appeared in many films since the beginning of cinema. These films were made in different languages and cultures, and created by famous directors. Examples include Carmen (1909) by Gerolamo Lo Savio, Carmen (1915) by Raoul Walsh with Theda Bara, Carmen (1915) by Cecil B. DeMille, and The Loves of Carmen (1948) by Charles Vidor, which starred Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford. In 1954, Otto Preminger made Carmen Jones, a film with an all-black cast. This movie was based on an earlier Broadway musical from 1943, which changed the story to take place in 1940s North Carolina and Chicago.
Other films include The Wild, Wild Rose (1960), a Hong Kong film that set the story in a Wanchai nightclub and included songs by Grace Chang. In 1983, Carlos Saura made a film using flamenco dance, and Peter Brook filmed his version of La Tragédie de Carmen. Jean-Luc Godard also made a film about Carmen in 1984. In 1984, Francesco Rosi made a film with Julia Migenes and Plácido Domingo that closely followed the original story and music. Carmen on Ice (1990) was inspired by Katarina Witt’s gold medal-winning performance at the 1988 Winter Olympics and starred Witt, Brian Boitano, and Brian Orser. In 2001, Robert Townsend made Carmen: A Hip Hopera, starring Beyoncé Knowles, which was an African-American version of the story. In 2010, the South African dancer and choreographer Dada Masilo created a modern ballet version of Carmen.
The opera Carmen has also been adapted into African films. These include Karmen Geï (2001), directed by Joseph Gaï Ramaka, and U-Carmen eKhayelitsha (2005), directed by Mark Dornford-May. The film U-Carmen eKhayelitsha won the Golden Bear award at the Berlinale in 2005.