Carmen at the Greek National Opera

Bizet’s Carmen returns to Athens in a landmark new production by the Greek National Opera, presented at the Stavros Niarchos Hall. This staging revisits the opera’s original 1875 Paris premiere at the Opéra Comique, faithfully reconstructed through extensive archival research into the original director’s notebook, sets, and costumes supervised by Bizet himself. The result is a vivid and striking re encounter with one of the most iconic works in the operatic repertoire.

Directed by Romain Gilbert, with sets by Antoine Fontaine and costumes by Christian Lacroix, the production foregrounds Carmen as a story of freedom, desire, and defiance within a rigid, patriarchal society. Rather than softening its brutality through familiar melodies, this version brings the opera’s underlying violence and emotional tension to the fore, allowing Carmen’s insistence on autonomy to resonate with renewed urgency.

Selected performances in May will be fully accessible, offering Greek surtitles, audio description, and other inclusive services.