Cineworld Opera Season

Performance date: 6 June 2010

Running time: 158 mins

Composer: Georges Bizet

Starring: Anna Caterina Antonacci, Jonas Kaufmann, Ildebrando d'Arcangelo

The Spanish heat and gypsy passion of Carmen ensure a feast show-stopping imagery, ear-catching music and heart-stopping drama.

Francesca Zambello's vibrant direction and Tanya McCallin's richly coloured designs create the sun-drenched and sultry world of 19th-century Spain, with its ranks of soldiers and crowd of peasants, its gypsies and bullfighters, its spectacle and its deadly, white hot emotions. Acclaimed Italian-born Anna Caterina Antonacci plays the temptress of the title. Heart-throb German tenor Jonas Kaufmann is Don Jose, the soldier she forces to murderous jealousy over her affair with the bullfighter Escamillo, played by the wonderful Ildebrando d'Arcangelo. This outstanding cast, under the baton of Royal Opera Music Director, Antonio Pappano, play out this famous story with its sexy solos, rousing choruses, impassioned arias and Spanish dances of one of the most famously tuneful of all operas. The seductive Habanera and the Toreador's Song are just two of its many familiar melodies. Cast and crew subject to change.

Conductor: Antonio Pappano

You should see it because: Since it first appeared on the Paris stage in 1875, Bizet's Carmen has remained one of the most enduringly popular works in the entire opera repertory.