About the work
“Killing Carmen” is a music theatre piece by Nils Strunk, Lukas Schrenk and the musician Gabriel Cazes that continues and reworks Georges Bizet’s opera “Carmen” (libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy). It was created for the Volksoper Wien, where it premiered on 1 October 2025, directed jointly by Strunk and Schrenk. It is sung and spoken in German, French and English.
Plot
Thirteen years after Carmen’s death, Don José sits in prison awaiting execution. On the day he is to be hanged, characters from Bizet’s opera gather again in Lillas Pastia’s run-down tavern while a storm rages outside. Each of them remembers the events of the past differently, and so the evening turns to guilt, a lost love and the question of freedom.
Cultural significance
Musically the piece combines Bizet’s famous melodies with jazz, flamenco, western, pop, chanson and musical theatre. Strunk and Schrenk had previously become known for their idiosyncratic adaptation of “The Magic Flute” at the Burgtheater; Viennese critics found “Killing Carmen” colourful but overlong in places, while the premiere audience responded enthusiastically.