Georges Bizet: Carmen - Opera in Four Acts

Carmen is a myth - something that never was, but always is. Freedom-loving Carmen emerges as the demonically exotic seductress of a man initially confident in himself. The love between them ultimately transforms into a merciless struggle for life and death: absolute loyalty or absolute freedom?

When the soldier Don José risks his modest career, his planned marriage to Micaëla, and his ordered social life, slides into petty crime, and ultimately becomes a murderer, Prosper Mérimée - author of the literary source material - lets his character explain this through the spell of Carmen, recalling the day before his execution.

In the operatic version, however, Bizet shifts perspective, removing all moralizing, justification, and accusation, telling the story - musically and dramatically extraordinarily compelling - from the viewpoint of the female protagonist: Carmen becomes a ruthless spectacle with music!

In this production, the students not only handle scenery, costumes, and makeup, play in the orchestra, and sing in the choir, but also perform all solo parts and create new dialogue scenes to reframe this myth from today's perspective. Thus emerges their own Carmen adaptation, which contrasts the 19th-century image of Carmen with contemporary gender relations.