On March 31, 2025, La Poste issues a block of one stamp to mark the 150th anniversary of the first performance of the famous opera CARMEN composed by Georges BIZET.
Love, passion, obsession, death. A world of Gypsies, soldiers, smuggling and bullfights around Seville at the beginning of the 19th century. Carmen, which premiered on March 3, 1875 in Paris, is without a doubt the most famous French opera and a global success. Composed by Georges Bizet, who died a few weeks after its creation, it was inspired by a short story by Prosper Mérimée. The libretto was written by Ludovic Halévy and Henri Meilhac and features four main characters: Carmen, a gypsy and cigar seller, the brigadier Don José whom she seduces while she is placed in his custody after an altercation, Micaëla, the young Navarrese woman to whom he was supposed to be engaged, and the bullfighter Escamillo for whom Carmen chooses to abandon Don José. Tinged with orientalism, the story ends with the murder of passion of Carmen by her unfortunate lover and is peppered with famous arias ("L'amour est un oiseau rebelle", the séguedille, the aria of the Toreador, in particular). The work was first created at the Opéra-Comique, but it is a break from the plays usually produced there by its description of working-class reality, the absence of an obvious moral and the psychological complexity of the characters. It received a mixed reception from the public, who considered it scandalous and vulgar. However, it inspired the Italian verismo movement, the most famous of which was Puccini. Among the admirers who nevertheless made their voices heard were Théodore de Banville, Nietzsche, Wagner, Brahms and Tchaikovsky, thus preparing an international success. After Paris, the work was presented in Vienna and then in New York in altered versions, since the unexpected death of Bizet prevented the publication of a definitive version of the score. The greatest singers have since played the role, from Minnie Hauk to Maria Callas and Teresa Berganza. The opera has also inspired many films, such as Carmen Jones by Otto Preminger and Prénom Carmen by Jean-Luc Godard.
