She's the original hot girl who won't be tamed — and it ends exactly how you'd expect in 1875.
This ever-popular opera is given a fresh point of view in Barrie Kosky’s highly physical production, originally created for Frankfurt Opera. The Australian director is one of the world’s most sought-after opera directors, whose Royal Opera debut with Shostakovich’s The Nose in 2016 was greeted with delight. For Carmen he has devised a far-from-traditional version, incorporating music written by Bizet for the score but not usually heard, and giving a new voice to the opera’s endlessly fascinating central character.
Direction
Kosky's body-centric staging makes centuries-old opera feel dangerously alive.
Acting
Goryachova's Carmen reclaims agency from centuries of male-gaze interpretations.
Score
Restored Bizet cuts you've never heard in traditional productions.
Director
Barrie Kosky
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Kosky deliberately stripped away the traditional Spanish exoticism, focusing instead on the raw physicality of bodies in space — a radical rejection of operatic convention.
Bizet died just three months after Carmen's disastrous premiere, never knowing it would become the world's most performed opera. The 'Habanera' you know? He rewrote it twice after initial rejection.
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