The St. Petersburg Ballet brings Carmen to Atlanta on April 28, dancing to Bizet’s famous opera score. Test your knowledge below, and see how much you know about the famous, fictional, femme fatale.
- Which came first, Carmen the opera or the ballet?
- What professions are Carmen’s lovers in?
- Bizet’s opera score for Carmen was first adapted for the ballet in:
- Where did the story of Carmen come from?
a.) 1880
b.) 1927
c.) 1949
d.) 1907
- The ballet. Marius Petipa choreographed the ballet in 1845, 30 years before Bizet wrote his famous opera. He adapted it from Prosper Mérimée’s novella Carmen.
- Don José is a soldier; Escamillo is a bullfighter. In fact, Carmen is murdered while Escamillo is in the bullring.
- 1949. Roland Petit adapted Bizet’s score for his Ballets de Paris.
- In 1830, while Mérimée was traveling through Andalusia, Spain, the Countess Montijo told him a gypsy girl had been murdered by a jealous lover. Fifteen years later, he took that anecdote, and combined it with information gathered through travel and research to write Carmen.
