As a worker in a local cigarette factory, she flirts and sings with the local garrison troops who hang on her every word, each calling out for her to say they love them in turn. Set in Seville around the 1820s, the opera tells the story of the eponymous Carmen – or Carmencita, as is her nickname – a fiery, independent Gypsy woman who is both brazen and brave, and twirls men around her finger effortlessly with her wicked sense of humor. Photo courtesy of Virginia Opera Company.Ī four-Act work with a French libretto, but set in Seville, Spain with distinctly Spanish themes, Carmen was the most famous work of its French composer, Georges Bizet, who, sadly, did not live to see it become a hit after a lukewarm reception in Paris in 1875. Things were very fiery this past Friday night at the GMU Center for the Arts as the Virginia Opera brings a new and exciting full-scale production of Bizet’s Carmen, one of the most renowned and certainly most dramatic operas in history, to the Fairfax establishment, Don Jose (Dinyar Vania) and Carmen (Ginger Costa-Jackson).

Carmen opera denver