At Teatro La Fenice, a masterpiece of French repertoire absent from 1997: Georges Bizet's “Carmen”, opéra-comique in four acts of Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy taken from the homonymous novel by Prosper Mérimée. The work, proposed in a new production co-produced by the Fondazione Teatro La Fenice with Gran Teatre de Liceu in Barcelona, Fondazione Teatro Massimo of Palermo, Fondazione Teatro Regio in Turin (already presented in Barcelona in September 2010 and Palermo in November 2011 ), will appreciate for the first time in Venice the work of Spanish director Calixto Bieito, with sets by Alfons Flores and costumes by Mercè Paloma. The Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro La Fenice (chorus master Claudio Marino Moretti) and the children's choir of the Venetians Boys Choir (chorus master Diana D'Alessio) will be directed by the Israelian thirty master Omer Meir Wellber. Cast: Béatrice Uria-Monzon will be the main alternating with Katarina Giotas as Carmen, Stefano Secco alternating with Luca Lombardo in that of Don José, and Alexander Vinogradov and Károly Szemerédy as Escamillo; Ekaterina Bakanova and Virginia Wagner to Micaëla; Chiara Fracasso in the role of Mercédès and Sonia Ciani in that of Frasquita. The first performance of “Carmen” took place at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, March 3, 1875. Latest work by Bizet - who died three months later, saddened and disappointed with his failure – “Carmen” brought a breath of fresh air in the tradition of the Opera-Comique, violating the horizons of expectation of the right-thinking Parisian public. Cigar makers, smugglers, prostitutes, perversity, sensuality, carnality, shady and dubious characters certainly did not fit the ideals of the French bourgeoisie: the realism of Mérimée, accepted in the print media, was, even with all the lightening operated (choirs and dances, Hispanic couleur locale, the addition of the character of Micaëla), too raw in the implementation stage.