The famous opera "Carmen," staged by a group of Spanish dancers and singers, had a full house at their performance at a Chinese theater Tuesday evening.
The performance, given in Nanning, capital of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, dubbed the "Home of Song and Dance," gained prolonged applause from local people.
"Carmen" is the work by French music genius Georges Bizet. It was completed in the summer of 1874 and remains one of the most popular operas ever written.
Based on Merimee's novel Carmen, Bizet's opera was dramatized with great imagination by the two librettists Meilhac and Halevy.
It is a story about a military man named Jose, who falls in love with an enticing but fickle girl, Carmen, from a cigarette factory. The tragedy begins when Carmen participates actively in smuggling contraband goods while Jose joins her and deserts the army. However, the gypsy girl quickly leaves him for a bullfighter, Escamillo. The love story ends with death when Jose finally stabs his lover outside the bullring.
The opera has attracted audiences in large numbers in China. China's Central Opera Theater staged this opera more than 120 times in the 1980s.
(Xinhua 11/22/2000)
