Carmen is today one of the most popular operas in the repertoire but when it was first performed it was panned by the critics and hated by the audience who watched it at the Opera Comique theatre in 1875. Bizet thought he had written something that people would love - and indeed he had, but he died not long after that first performance and the critics then hypocritically “changed their minds” and decided to praise his work to the rafters. The main reason the opera was not accepted by the public was that they thought the story was immoral - the upper middle-class Parisians who regularly attended the opera expected something suitable for a family audience, and as far as they were concerned Carmen just wasn’t it. It had a heroine who apparently completely lacked morality and the final Act descended into bloody violence, when most people expected a tuneful and colourful chorus to bring the opera to satisfying conclusions. We’ll look at the bourgeoisie as a class in Paris and how their tastes became paramount after the French Revolution, when Napoleon encouraged them to take the place of the aristocracy, which had traditionally dominated opera audiences. We will also look at the bloodshed that brought Paris Commune to an end and how that affected the mood in Paris when Carmen was first performed just four years later. It will also have musical extracts in the course.