On Fancies and Goodnights, Richard writes: ‘As a curious traveller will collect objects that catch his eye, these short pieces are among the many that have caught my ear with their beauty, strangeness, and unpredictability. I have borrowed the title “Fancies and Goodnights” from a book of bewitching tales by the English writer, John Collier.’

EPSG:4326

Richard Goode piano

Wigmore Hall

Be captivated as the Danish National Opera presents Georges Bizet’s hit opera in a new production directed by Johanne Holten, with a Danish translation by Jens Louis Petersen.

Carmen

Royal Danish Opera

This triple bill showcases neoclassical ballet at its purest. Last season, the programme embraced pieces by three generations of choreographers, George Balanchine, Toer van Schayk, and Edward Clug, who turned to the music by Beethoven, Chopin, and Bizet. Each choreography had its own unmistakable appeal and was enthusiastically received by the audience. This season, the triple bill returns with even greater emotional resonance. Symphony of Dance: An Encore opens with Balanchine’s Symphony in C to Bizet’s music. The spectacular symphony of dance by the father of neoclassical ballet is followed by Edward Clug’s more subdued piece, fittingly titled Ssss… Set to Chopin’s nocturnes, the work provides a shift in mood from nostalgic to pensive. Finally, the programme culminates with Krzysztof Pastor’s choreography to Ravel’s Bolero. The piece needs no special recommendation: it is an explosion of passion and an apotheosis of rhythm that rouses, captivates, and hypnotises.

Symphony of Dance: an encore

Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera

An all-star cast brings Damiano Michieletto’s white-hot production to life, with Ginger Costa-Jackson and Ramona Zaharia in the fiery title role, alongside Russell Thomas and Valentyn Dytiuk as the jealous and despairing Don José. Sesto Quatrini conducts Bizet’s electrifying and sensual score.

Royal Opera House

A Night at the Opera returns to Cadogan Hall with a spectacular programme of operatic favourites. Featuring four outstanding soloists – soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor and baritone – the evening brings together some of opera’s greatest showstoppers, including the irresistible ‘Largo al factotum’ from The Barber of Seville, the triumphant ‘Toreador Song’ from Carmen, and celebrated ensemble highlights such as Mozart’s serene trio ‘Soave sia il vento’ from Così fan tutte and Verdi’s dramatic quartet ‘Bella figlia dell’amore’ from Rigoletto.

A Night at the Opera by Candlelight

Cadogan Hall

Georges Bizet's opera from 1875, performed in Danish with Danish surtitles. Danish translation: Jens Louis Petersen. With Den Jyske Opera.

Vejle Musikteater

Teo is having some trouble with his La Scala report card: he just can’t seem to understand opera! What he needs is an artificial intelligence… a robot capable of showing him a different perspective on music. But watch out for those notes!

Mimì & Teo and… The Jazz Robot!

Teatro alla Scala

Since 2012, World Opera Day has celebrated opera as a complete art form, capable of moving, surprising, and transporting all audiences. To demonstrate this, the Opera Orchestra is marking the event with two evenings of opera at the Opéra Comédie. Faust , Carmen , La Bohème , Turandot , The Magic Flute , Die Fledermaus … arias you've already heard or even hummed.

Opera Passion

Opéra Comédie

One of the most charismatic stars in opera today, Juan Diego Flórez has captivated audiences at The Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, the Royal Opera House, and beyond. Renowned for his breathtaking bel canto artistry, the Peruvian tenor is also the founder of Sinfonía por el Perú, a transformative initiative bringing music to underprivileged youth. Together with the HK Phil, he will showcase world-class vocal powerhouse in arias by Rossini, Donizetti, Massenet, Verdi for the audiences in the Chinese Mainland. A truly unmissable event for all music lovers.

Xinghai Concert — Juan Diego Flórez Opera Gala

Xinghai Concert Hall

Opera in Danish with Danish supertitles. Danish translation: Jens Louis Petersen.

CARMEN with Den Jyske Opera

Koncertsalen Alsion

One of the most charismatic stars in opera today, Juan Diego Flórez has captivated audiences at The Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, the Royal Opera House, and beyond. Renowned for his breathtaking bel canto artistry, the Peruvian tenor is also the founder of Sinfonía por el Perú, a transformative initiative bringing music to underprivileged youth. Flórez’s highly anticipated Hong Kong debut offers a rare opportunity to experience this world-class vocal powerhouse in arias by Rossini, Donizetti, Massenet, Verdi, among others. A truly unmissable event for all music lovers.

Rolex Proudly Presents: Juan Diego Flórez Opera Gala

Hong Kong Cultural Centre

Carmen is desirable, defiant, and driven. She thinks nothing of charming a soldier to escape a spot of trouble—never imagining that he would abandon his childhood sweetheart and desert his post to follow her.  But Don José is a jealous lover, and as Carmen begins a new relationship with the bullfighter Escamillo,  his passion turns dark—and deadly. 

Bizet's masterpiece arrives onstage in a brand-new production drenched in Spanish Gothic splendor, created by director/designer Thaddeus Strassberger. Domingo Hindoyan opens his inaugural season as Music Director with one of the world's most iconic scores.

Los Angeles Music Center

She’s the woman who turns every head — and breaks every rule.
Bizet’s Carmen returns in a bold new production that pulses with danger, desire, and defiance. Emerging Director Laura Hansford, who is definitely one to watch, reimagines this operatic classic diving deep into the revolutionary heart of its iconic heroine. Carmen refuses to be owned, and her fiery spirit ignites a tragic love story that still burns with relevance today.

Her Majesty's Theatre

Women's Choir in the Foyer

Teatro Massimo di Palermo

A passion that burns. Desire ignites a dangerous flame in Bizet’s Carmen. When a fiercely independent woman pulls a soldier into her orbit, obsession spirals into jealousy, betrayal, and tragedy. Packed with bold melodies and irresistible rhythms, this fiery story of seduction and destruction blazes all the way to its unforgettable final moment.

Bizet’s Carmen

Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts

Tonight’s concert is conducted by Mark Elder (a Principal Artist of the OAE), with all the on-stage action in a new translation by Jeremy Sams.

The Girl from Arles

Southbank Centre

«Free she was born, free she will die»: To preserve her freedom, Carmen even accepts her own death. With her uncompromising will to autonomy, she shattered the moral conventions of her time. This sets her apart from the many passive, self-sacrificing female characters of 19th-century opera – once a scandalous figure, later a figure of identification, always a large screen onto which audiences project their own feelings. Director Ole Anders Tandberg takes up these ambivalences and works with iconic images: the bright red flamenco dress, the torero costume and the bullring. But these symbols are not left uncommented upon; instead, they are exaggerated to the point of the grotesque and the macabre. An emotional rollercoaster ride with catchy tunes like the Habanera and the Toreador Song that will linger long in memory. Argentinian conductor Alejo Pérez, General Music Director of Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, makes his debut at Deutsche Oper Berlin. Gaëlle Arquez brings charm and sophistication to the French Carmen, and later our new ensemble member Kristina Stanek introduces herself as the new Berlin Carmen.

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Anita Rachvelishvili

San Carlo Theatre

You can simply go to a concert at the Philharmonie, spontaneously, during your lunch break – and with free admission: every Wednesday at 13:00 between September and June. The programme lasts 40 to 50 minutes: chamber music, piano works or a percussion duo – everything from Tchaikovsky to tango. Members of the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Karajan-Akademie regularly perform, as well as guests from the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, the Staatskapelle Berlin and the Berlin music conservatories. As can be expected at a lunch concert, catering is available from 12 noon until shortly before the concert begins.

Lunch concert

Berliner Philharmoniker

Daniele Callegari conducts Bizet and Čajkovskij

Teatro Malibran

In Seville, Carmen seduces the young brigadier Don José before their passion turns to tragedy. "She leaves him, he kills her": Bizet's plot echoes a tragically recurring reality, making Carmen more political than ever. Jeanne Desoubeaux and a company of ten artists take over the urban space, where public debate can unfold. The Opéra-Comique invites audiences to this lyrical walk, from the Cité internationale des Arts to the Collège François Couperin, in the 4th arrondissement of Paris.

Carmen: itinerant opera-landscape

Cité Internationale des Arts

The Voice and the Soul

Northern Ireland Opera will bring to life the powerful story of Carmen, a passionate, intelligent woman who dares to challenge convention, pursuing seduction, love and her freedom.

Filled with famous arias including the Habanera and the Toreador song, book now for an evening of fiery emotion in one of best-loved operas ever written.

Grand Opera House Belfast

Carmen is actually one of the first verismo operas that preceded the “manifesto” of the Italian artistic movement. Its style, and the death of the title heroine, which were at variance with the established opéra comique conventions, seem to have been the reason why the work did not give rise to much public enthusiasm at and in the wake of the world premiere in Paris in 1875. Yet Carmen soon triumphed in other European cities.

National Theatre Prague

The Royal Swedish Opera's traditional participation in Parkteatern's annual program: every summer cultural experiences are offered on outdoor stages around Stockholm - completely free.

The Opera in the park

Vitabergsparken

Gustavo Dudamel leads musicians from YOLA (Youth Orchestra Los Angeles) and Scotland’s Big Noise, a music education and social change program that works intensively with children, young people, and families within targeted communities, in a family concert program of high-energy selections.

Edinburgh International Festival: Family Concert

Usher Hall, Edinburgh

Discover the magic of classical music in this joyful concert for children and their grown-ups.

Family Concert

Usher Hall

The season’s ultimate thrill, Bizet’s CARMEN erupts with raw emotion and intoxicating drama. International sensation Julia Bullock makes her electrifying role debut as the free-spirited heroine whose charisma captivates everyone around her — especially a young soldier whose infatuation turns perilous. Fueled by unforgettable melodies and rhythms that simmer and surge, this is opera at its most seductive, volatile, and utterly unmissable.

Gichi-ziibi Center for the Arts

A first for the Festival: our new Executive and Artistic Director, Sebastian Nordmann, kicks off the Summer Festival by inviting everyone to a big party – free of charge. The acclaimed horn player Sarah Willis and her Havana Lyceum Orchestra bring samba and salsa rhythms, Cuban traditionals, and lively classical arrangements to the Europaplatz – music that invites the audience to join in and enjoy the moment.

Havana Lyceum Orchestra | José Antonio Méndez Padrón | Sarah Willis

KKL Lucerne

Countertenor John Holiday returns to Orchestra Hall to perform Carlos Simon’s orchestral song cycle Songs of Separation, a setting of texts by the 13th-century Persian Sufi mystic and poet Rūmī that meditates on loss, longing and the human experience of separation. Tracing a deeply expressive emotional arc—from grief and sorrow toward hope and affirmation—the work is brought vividly to life by Holiday, whose extraordinary, genre-defying voice has been praised by audiences and critics alike for its power, nuance and unmistakable individuality.

John Holiday

Orchestra Hall Minneapolis

Louis Langrée, known for his “interpretations rich in specificity and color, to a degree that can impress even seasoned musicians” (The New York Times), returns to the Bowl with selections from Bizet’s lyrical L’Arlésienne and sensuous Carmen suites.

Brahms & Bizet

Hollywood Bowl

A crossing where Bach meets jazz and electronica: finely chiseled counterpoint, incisive rhythms, hypnotic pulses. A vibrant reinterpretation, between improvisation, electric energy and baroque architecture.

The Art of the Fugue: Marimba Overture

Festival Salon

The 175th Subscription Concert in Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall

Tokyo Opera City Tower

Hong Kong Sinfonietta in Portugal Marvão International Music Festival

Marvão Castle

Ammaia Archaeological Site

The 1035th Subscription Concert in Bunkamura Orchard Hall

Bunkamura

The fiercely independent Carmen lives—and loves—on her own terms. When she sets her sights on Don José, a straight-laced soldier with a fiancée back home, he quickly unravels, abandoning everything for her. But Carmen’s heart doesn’t stay in one place for long, and when the charismatic toreador Escamillo enters the ring, jealousy turns deadly. Set to Bizet’s iconic, rhythm-driven score, Carmen is a story of desire, freedom, and fatal choices.

Cincinnati Music Hall

An evening of "Opera's Greatest Hits" performed by the Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Singers at the Santa Fe Railyard summer concert series. Free concert.

Opera at the Railyard

Santa Fe Railyard Plaza

The 1034th Subscription Concert in Suntory Hall

ARK Hills

Three mezzo-soprano voices: the same tessitura but timbres that could hardly be more different. Three young singers, Brenda Poupard, Anouk de Fontenay and Léontine Maridat-Zimmerlin, accompanied by pianist Anne Pagès, sing solo, in duets and in trios. World premiere of La Balade des Vierges by Jean-Marc Fouché.

One, Two, Three Voices

Jardins de la Salle Jean-Louis Herrault

“A Night at the Opera” brings the grand tradition of European opera into our American Adventures season, celebrating the larger-than-life drama, romance, and spectacle that have captivated audiences for centuries. This performance will showcase highlights of the work in concert format, featuring the Summit Choral Society alongside soloists selected from Central City Opera’s prestigious Bonfils-Stanton Foundation Young Artists Training Program. Mozart’s Overture to The Magic Flute sets the stage with brilliance and mystery, its noble chords and quicksilver passages opening the door to a world of fantasy. From Rossini’s swaggering “Largo al factotum” to Bizet’s sultry “Habanera,” from the thunder of Verdi’s Anvil Chorus to the soaring triumph of “Nessun dorma,” this program unfolds as a gallery of unforgettable moments—choruses, duets, and overtures that showcase opera’s full emotional range, from intimate confession to exhilarating spectacle. 

A Night at the Opera

Riverwalk Center

A square in Sevilla. Soldiers are whiling away the time in front of their guardhouse. Micaela enters and asks after Don Jose, who, however, is not expected until the changing of the guard. She says she will return again and runs off as the men laugh at her.

Max-Joseph-Platz

The next Music Director of the Teatro alla Scala, Myung-Whun Chung, reaches his eleventh opera title at La Scala (having conducted over 140 concerts both at home and on tour) with this new production of Bizet’s Carmen, a co-production with London’s Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and Madrid’s Teatro Real. Well-versed in French music—also through his work with the Opéra Bastille and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France—Chung leads a cast that is perfectly idiomatic. Alongside Clémentine Margaine in the title role, alternating with Stéphanie d’Oustrac, and Giorgi Manoshvili as Escamillo, the production features Vittorio Grigolo as Don José—a major Italian voice with a strong affinity for the French repertoire— alternating with Matthew Polenzani. Damiano Michieletto and set designer Paolo Fantin reduce local colour to a minimum in order to construct a bare and effective spectacle, focused on the ineluctable fate of the protagonists.

Under the baton of guest conductor José Luis Gómez, Summer Tales launches the 210 Festival—The Orchestra San Antonio’s signature summer celebration—inviting you to embark on a journey not by planes or trains, but through the music and imagination of summer adventures. The evening is full of familiar melodies—they are journeys full of color, tension, rhythm, and romance. Summer Tales is a musical escape filled with passion, power, and storytelling. The Orchestra San Antonio proudly welcomes rising star and cellist Cameron Renshaw to the Tobin Center stage in an epic showcase of talent.

Join us one hour before each concert in the Feik Family Rotunda for a lively pre-concert discussion with guest artists. Gain unique insights into the music, the creative process, and what to listen for as the evening unfolds.

Summer Tales

Tobin Center for the Performing Arts

The freedom-loving Carmen is desired by all men. Although none of their relationships last, the soldier Don José falls madly in love with her after she coquettishly throws a flower at his feet.

Vienna State Opera

Children's festival at Fredriksten fortress with opera, theater, fun activities, puppet theater, and creative workshops for children ages 3–12. Free admission.

Barnas Søndag Spesial

Fredriksten festning

Mussorgsky Khachaturian Bizet

Gasteig HP8

Under the musical direction of Gianandrea Noseda and Ann-Katrin Stöcker, the newly founded Kinderopernorchester performs excerpts from «Carmen» and «Hänsel und Gretel» alongside soloists and the Kinderchor der Oper Zürich.

Concert Kinderopernorchester­concert

Zurich Opera House

Teatro La Fenice

Comunale Nouveau

In this program, our orchestral toy shop is a whirlwind of activity: Under the direction of Kazuki Yamada, we joyfully immerse ourselves in the colorful and magical realm of childhood fantasy – with a work by Debussy, inspired in 1913 by the illustrator André Hellé. He once remarked: "Toy boxes are actually cities where toys live like real people." And he added ironically: "Or perhaps cities are nothing but toy boxes where people live like toys." For the delightful composition "La boîte à joujoux," we pull a pretty doll, a tin soldier, and a quarrelsome jumping jack from the musical box and bring this wonderful bedtime story to life on stage. The poetic world of children was also a fertile source of inspiration for Bizet: in 1871, with his piano cycle "Jeux d'enfants," he created a charming collection of short, concise genre pieces – and thanks to his skillful orchestration, we will set a whirring top in motion on the stage in the small suite. 

Kazuki Yamada, Leif Ove Andsnes

Bamberger Symphoniker

A Tribute to Balanchine and Wheeldon with Pure and Powerful Dance.

This season, Giant Steps presents two of George Balanchine’s most iconic masterpieces—Apollo and Symphony in C—alongside Christopher Wheeldon’s Corybantic Games, which carries the torch forward into the 21st century.

Giant Steps

It is hard to believe that Carmen, the most performed opera in the world, was a flop at its premiere, precipitating the death of its author at the age of 36. Hadn't Bizet been able to show "real men and real women dazzled, tortured by passion," Théodore de Banville enthused? Tonight, three voices, the cigar maker, her lover Don José and the bullfighter Escamillo, perform Carmen behind closed doors, a new lyrical suite that offers a summary of its key scenes. Another destiny cut short in the prime of life and inspiration is Lili Boulanger, the first woman to win the Prix de Rome, precisely with this cantata, Faust et Hélène .

Great tunes by Carmen Arquez - Behr / Cavallier

Maison de la Radio et de la Musique

The theme of the 2025/26 Orchestra Unwrapped concerts is centered around the history of the Philharmonia Orchestra, which was founded in 1945 by Walter Legge and celebrates its 80th birthday in 2025. Legge worked for a company called EMI, who was responsible for making recordings of classical music. 

The pieces you’ll hear take us on a journey through time linking to the exciting history of the Philharmonia, from 1945 to today – a history you are all part of by being part of Orchestra Unwrapped in its 80th year!

Bedford: Orchestra Unwrapped

Bedford Corn Exchange

Under the inspired baton of conductor Naomi Woo and accompanied by the Orchestre de l’Agora, the artists of the Atelier lyrique will take the stage to perform the defining highlights of their journey. This unique program, free of a formal narrative, is designed to showcase the excellence, vibrant personality, and remarkable artistic growth of each talent.

Gran finale

Place des Arts

Romantic Awakenings

Worthing Assembly Hall

Sheng Cai is an acclaimed Canadian pianist praised for his expressive depth and virtuosity. He has appeared as a soloist with major orchestras worldwide, including the Toronto Symphony, Shanghai Symphony, and Philharmonie Südwestfalen. A passionate interpreter of both standard and rare repertoire, his performances and recordings have earned international critical acclaim for their color, clarity, and power.

Masterworks: Musical Wanderlust

Lenoir-Rhyne University

Orchestre de Paris / Bar Avni

Philharmonie de Paris

On Ceylon, a community of fishermen lives by diving for pearls at the risk of their lives.

Les Pêcheurs de perles

The temple priestess Leila is supposed to banish the water spirits with her singing and protect the fishermen without ever lifting her veil. The return of Zurga's childhood friend Nadir throws events out of balance. The two friends had once sworn to renounce a girl they both loved in order to preserve their friendship. After Leila turns out to be this very girl, Nadir breaks his vow, just as Leila breaks hers, by lifting the veil. Zurga, who not only realizes that Leila once saved his life, but can now also admit his selfishness and jealousy, prevents the execution that the pearl fishers demand for the double breach of oath.

Senbla presents Ellen Kent’s Farewell Opera Tour featuring Opera International Kyiv, Ukraine, with Highly-Praised Soloists and Full Orchestra.

Ellen Kent Opera - Carmen

Cambridge Corn Exchange

Carmen is a freedom-loving woman who casts a spell on any man that crosses her path. Don José is a buttoned-down sergeant who falls for her charms. But when she turns her attention to another, José's love turns into obsession. With Carmen, Bizet created a true operatic classic replete with passion and sweeping melodies.

Oper Leipzig

Carmen is set in and around Seville, Spain, about 1820.

OLPH Catholic Academy of Brooklyn

Lust! Jealousy! Intrigue! Murder! It can only be Georges Bizet's simmering tale of a woman scorned - Carmen! Presented by the award-winning Ellen Kent Productions and Opera International and featuring the Ukrainian Opera & Ballet Theatre Kyiv, give yourself over to the delectable sights and sounds of this unforgettable opera. Featuring world-famous arias including the Toreador Song and the alluring Habanera, Ellen Kent's classic production will have you hot under the collar as it heads on its farewell tour in 2026!

Ellen Kent's Carmen

Princess Theatre - Torquay

Georges Bizet’s Carmen is often hailed as the opera for everyone. With its blend of French lyricism and Spanish passion, Bizet’s unforgettable melodies linger in your ears and heart long after the final curtain falls. At its core, Carmen tells the story of Don José, a man who sacrifices everything, his career, honour, family, and even his childhood sweetheart Micaëla, for a doomed love affair with the captivating and free-spirited gypsy, Carmen. One of the most performed operas in the world, Carmen is a timeless tale of passion, destiny, and above all, freedom. It’s the story of an unforgettable woman who lives and loves on her own terms, a man consumed by her, and another woman who desperately tries to save him.

Hong Kong Cultural Center

Created by Cuban ballet star Carlos Acosta, this version of Carmen is set to Rodion Shchedrin's orchestration of Bizet's opera score, injected with Cuban music and danced by Acosta's impressive Havana-based company.

Carlos Acosta's Carmen

New Victoria Theatre

Leicester: Orchestra Unwrapped

De Montfort Hall

Stephen Joven-Lee, piano

Northwestern Bienen School of Music

Grand Opera House York

Massimo for the city - Chorus of the Teatro Massimo

Parrocchia Nostra Signora delle Nazioni in S. Eugenio Papa

One of the world's most popular operas ever! The irresistible Carmen captivates the eyes of every man she meets, including the lovesick soldier Don José. As he forsakes his military duty, his fiancée, and the law, his admiration becomes uncontrollable obsession and Carmen leaves him for prestige and freedom. Bizet's famous music accompanies a lethal dance of lust, love, and survival that only stops when the struggle for freedom ends.

Seattle Center

This production will explore the full emotional range of Bizet’s tempestuous masterpiece — its beauty, its intensity, its truth — alongside a cast of operatic luminaries, including Rihab Chaieb, Arturo Chacón-Cruz, Magali Simard-Galdès, and Ethan Vincent. 

A force of freedom and passion, Carmen’s charisma commands the attention of everyone in Seville. Don José is no exception. A loyal soldier, he surrenders his post, morals, and soul as he is ravaged by the flames of obsession. When Carmen’s attention turns to the daring bullfighter Escamillo, José’s jealousy takes a dark and fatal turn. Free in love and in death, our legendary heroine meets her fate as only Carmen can — fearlessly.

Once again the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra will finish out our season with another "over-the-top" orchestral journey. The young Russian phenomenon Andrey Gugnin -- who, last season, entered our hearts with a magisterial rendition of the Grieg Piano Concerto, done miraculously with the LSO without rehearsal! -- returns for what will no doubt be an equally majestic reading of the first of two concertos of Johannes Brahms, with whom our season began.....And on our second half, in another great La Crosse tradition, our two winning Conductor Wannabees will regale us with their podium talents! Two works redolent of the joys of summer -- a  poignant, forgotten gem of the Englishman Frederick Delius, and the ecstatic and oh-so-French "Daphnis and Chloe" ballet of Maurice Ravel -- wind up what will be a magnificent grand finale!

Andrey Returns!

Viterbo University

Is Carmen’s gaze only to be compared with that of a wild animal? The French writer Prosper Mérimée explored this question in his novella Carmen, which was the basis for Georges Bizet’s (1838-1875) final opera, which premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 3 March 1875. Carmen’s air of seduction is both her weapon and her downfall, for in the end she dies at the hands of her jealous lover, Don José. Carmen refuses to be told what to do and certainly doesn’t want to be rescued by Don José in the shifting sands in front of the bullfighting arena. She prefers death to having her life decided by others. In the extremely popular and passionate “Habanera” aria, which is our first encounter with Carmen, she paints a picture of herself: “Love is a rebellious bird that none can tame.” Her indomitable desire for freedom is stamped in her DNA.

Semperoper Dresden

Richard Goode has been hailed for music-making of tremendous emotional power, depth and expressiveness, and acknowledged worldwide as one of today’s leading interpreters of Classical and Romantic piano music. Goode has curated a program called “Fancies and Goodnights”—borrowing the title from a book of bewitching tales by writer John Collier—that highlights works that have caught his ear with their beauty and unpredictability.

Richard Goode, piano

Oberlin College

Soirée Balanchine

Wind Division Recital

560 Music Center

Join the Columbus Symphony Youth Orchestras Repertory Orchestra for a concert with free admission. Repertoire includes I Vespri Siciliani (Verdi), selections from L’Arlesienne (Bizet), Lieutenant Kijé (Prokofiev), and the Grammy- and Oscar-winning hit song Golden from K-Pop Demon Hunters! Email Nia Dewberry (ndewberry@columbussymphony.com) for more information.

The Columbus Symphony Youth Orchestras are committed to supporting the lives of young musicians and their families through professional and enriching rehearsals and performances. We are here to serve and inspire the passionate music-makers of central Ohio and elevate our community through musical excellence and innovation.

Repertory Orchestra Concert

Weigel Auditorium

From the charm of Bizet’s L’Arlésienne Suite No. 2: Minuet and Farandole to the majesty of Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8, this concert brims with energy and grace. Joyce Yang captivates with Rachmaninoff’s beloved Piano Concerto No. 2, a work brimming with lyricism and feelings.

Jun Märkl conducts Rachmaninoff and Dvořák

Hilbert Circle Theatre

Coro donne in Foyer

Carmen - Ellen Kent’s Farewell Opera Tour - featuring the Opera International Kyiv, Ukraine

Cliffs Pavilion

Green cello, blue bassoon, yellow piccolo—the vibrant hues of French music unfold like a painting by Monet or Gauguin, capturing fleeting moments of magic, conjuring fairytale worlds and whisking us away to distant lands. Ravel’s Ma Mère l’Oye contains five movements inspired by well-known fairy tales, while Mel Bonis evokes a sensual, dreamlike world in her Rêve de Cléopâtre.

Colour Play

Collège Jean-Eudes

Mercier Public Library

Paroisse Notre Dame de l'Annonciation

Paroisse St-Joachim de Pointe-Claire

Legendary dancer and ballet director Carlos Acosta brings his own breath-taking vision of the timeless operatic classic, coming on tour around the UK next year. Telling the extraordinary tale of love, desire, and dangerous jealousy, Carmen contains some of the most beloved musical motifs in classical music, and is beautifully reimagined by Acosta's expert hand.

Aylesbury Waterside Theatre

Get to know the many sides of the audience-favorite and beloved opera, Georges Bizet's Carmen, led by dramaturg Jonathan Dean. Plus, when you register for this seminar, you will automatically be included in a one-night-only lecture by conductor Ludovic Morlot about Bizet on May 5.

Georges Bizet

Events

Upcoming events

May 11 - Dec 25, 2026

Les Pêcheurs de perles · Wiener Staatsoper

Jun 1, 2026 - May 7, 2027

Carmen · Wiener Staatsoper

Sep 4, 2026 - May 5, 2027

Carmen · Národní divadlo

Oct 4, 2026 - Mar 12, 2027

Carmen · Deutsche Oper Berlin

Oct 17 - Nov 7, 2026

Carmen · LA Opera

Past events

Nov 2, 2026

Richard Goode piano · Wigmore Hall

1 - 2 Nov, 2026

Carmen · Det Kongelige Teater

About

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