While Lieutenant Zuniga drafts the order for her imprisonment, she is put into José’s custody. Suddenly, screams are heard from the factory: Carmen has been involved in a fight and has slashed another woman’s face. José resolves to honor his mother’s wishes by marrying Micaëla. Micaëla returns, this time with a letter from José’s mother. One of the women, the gypsy Carmen, tells her friends that love is “a wild bird that cannot be imprisoned.” Before returning to work, she flirtatiously tosses a flower at Don José. At noon, the young men of the town gather to watch the women as they come out of the cigarette factory on a break from work. Led by an officer, Moralès, the soldiers surround her and try to detain her, but Micaëla flees.Īfterwards, José’s military unit arrives. Micaëla, a young country girl, enters the square in search of one of the soldiers, Don José. In a town square in Seville, Spain, soldiers guarding the cigarette factory idly watch the passersby.

Carmen opera run time