Damiano Michieletto's staging of Carmen returns to the Royal Opera House on 29 October, with two casts sharing the principal roles across a four-week run. Here is everything you need to know before you book.
Bizet's opera hardly needs an introduction, but this particular Carmen does. Damiano Michieletto's production, first seen at the Royal Opera House in 2024, comes back to the Main Stage from Thursday 29 October to Saturday 21 November 2026, conducted by Sesto Quatrini. It is the second most performed opera in The Royal Opera's repertory, with more than 600 performances behind it, so the question for a returning audience is less whether to hear it than which cast to book.
Who is starring in Carmen?
The principal roles are shared between two casts. Ginger Costa-Jackson and Ramona Zaharia divide the title role, while Russell Thomas and Valentyn Dytiuk share Don José, the soldier who gives up everything to follow her. Adriana González and Simona Mihai sing Micaëla, the young woman who loves him, and Alexander Vinogradov is the toreador Escamillo.
The smaller roles are taken by Seohyun Go as Frasquita, Ellen Pearson as Mercédès, Giorgi Guliashvili as Dancaïro, Emyr Lloyd Jones as Remendado, Barnaby Rea as Zuniga and Sam Hird as Moralès. The Royal Opera Chorus, prepared by chorus director William Spaulding, and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House complete the company. The casts alternate across the run, so anyone set on a particular singer should check the performance date before booking.
What is Carmen about?
Carmen arrives in a provincial Spanish town and announces that any man she loves had better watch out. She sets her sights on Don José, a policeman with a respectable future, a mother at home and Micaëla waiting for him. He resists, briefly, and then abandons all of it for a life on the wrong side of the law with her. When Carmen tires of his possessiveness and turns to the celebrated bullfighter Escamillo, José's jealousy has nowhere left to go.
The score is wall-to-wall with tunes the audience will know before the curtain rises: the Habanera, the Seguidilla, the Toreador Song and Don José's Flower Song among them. Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy's libretto, drawn from Prosper Mérimée's novella, still ends as bluntly as it did when the opera was greeted coolly at its 1875 premiere.
Who is behind the production?
Michieletto, an Olivier Award-winning director, sets the opera under a fierce Spanish sun and plays it naturalistically, with a hard eye on the lust and violence the story usually prettifies. His regular collaborators make up the team: Paolo Fantin designs the set, Carla Teti the costumes and Alessandro Carletti the lighting, with Elisa Zaninotto as dramaturg. The production is shared with Teatro Real in Madrid and La Scala in Milan.
When and where can I see it?
The run opens on Thursday 29 October 2026 at 7pm and closes on Saturday 21 November 2026, on the Main Stage at Covent Garden. Performances last about 3 hours and 5 minutes including one interval of 25 minutes, and the opera is sung in French with English surtitles above the stage and around the auditorium. The age guidance is 8+, and children under 5 are not admitted; the staging includes a murder, sexual themes and violence, and blank gunshots are fired in Act I.
Tickets for Carmen currently start at £56 on our show page. The opera house lists relaxed, audio-described, captioned and BSL-interpreted performances for this production, so it is worth checking which dates carry them before choosing a night.
What else should I book if I like it?
The obvious companion is across town. English National Opera opens its new Tosca at the London Coliseum the day after Carmen opens, from 30 October to 11 December, and it is another story of a woman, a jealous man and a fatal last act, sung in English. Our casting report has the full company.
Staying at Covent Garden, Don Giovanni offers Mozart's seducer as a counterpart to Bizet's, and The Magic Flute is the gentlest way into opera for anyone bringing a first-timer. For dance, English National Ballet's The Nutcracker returns to the London Coliseum for Christmas.
