Beijing Fringe Festival: Carmen (Spanish)
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China.org.cn, September 8, 2011
Time and Date: 7:30 p.m., daily, Sept. 13-14
Place: Beijing Oriental Pioneer Theatre (Location)
Tel: 6417-7845, 400-610-3721
Tickets: 40/80/120
Booking at: http://en.piao.com.cn/beijing/ticket_3579.html
Carmen is a French opera comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halevy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Merimee, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies (1824) by Alexander Pushkin. Merimee had read the poem in Russian by 1840 and translated it into French in 1852.
The story is set in Seville, Spain, c. 1830, and concerns the eponymous Carmen, a beautiful Gypsy with a fiery temper. Free with her love, she woos the corporal Don Jose, an inexperienced soldier. Their relationship leads to his rejection of his former love, mutiny against his superior, and joining a gang of smugglers. His jealousy when she turns from him to the bullfighter Escamillo leads him to murder Carmen.