Bizet once wrote that had there been no adultery, fanatism, crime, evil or the supernatural, composers would not have had ideas for their operas. Carmen, however, that story about sexual obsession and inevitable murder for love, provoked consternation of the Parisian audience, unaccustomed to such bold a mixture of comic and tragic elements.

Bizet died exactly three months after the premiere. He did not see the triumph of his refined music, in which even today everyone can find the bad element of their nature: either in the superficiality of Carmen, Escamillo's egotism or blindness of Don José, possessed by a demon of jealousy. To our amusement and as a warning, like in a genuine tragicomedy.

See www.opera.poznan.pl