A vibrant, city, it is a delight for strollers, with streets famously lined by trees heavy with the bitter oranges that share the city’s name. Seville is deservedly one of the most-visited tourist destinations in Europe. There, they can admire the view, taste a small plate of tapas or drink a glass of delectable manzanilla - the famous local dry white sherry Carmen tempts her lover with to run off and share a life of crime. Between acts, audience members can stroll, or ride in horse carriages or buses from one location to another, and perhaps pause on the banks of the broad Guadalquivir river.

The factory building now houses the University of Seville, and its past as Spain’s tobacco monopoly shows in its magnificence. Lorin Maazel will conduct some of the most famous opera stars of our time: Denyce Graves, Olga Borodina, Angelina Gheorghiu and Ekaterina Sementschuk will alternate as Carmen, and Neil Shicoff, Walter Fraccaro and Nicola Rossi-Giordano as Don José.Ĭarmen is scheduled to be stabbed to death nine times at the Plaza de Toros de la Maestranza, the 14,000-seat “world’s cathedral of bullfighting,” and one will also be able see the tobacco factory where she is supposed to have worked. The mayor of Seville and Opera on Original Site, which markets and produces operas at the sites with which they are most closely associated, have just announced the participants.

An astonishing 100 operas are set in Seville - and not just any operas, mind you, but some of the greatest: Beethoven’s “Fidelio,” Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” and “Marriage of Figaro,” Verdi’s “La Forza del Destino,” and Rossini’s “Barber of Seville.” But the one chosen to kick off the first Seville International Music Festival in September 2004 is the most popular of all: Bizet’s masterpiece, “Carmen.” And, fittingly, the opera will be staged outdoors, allowing the legendary, romantic city to serve as the backdrop.

Carmen opera vienna