Joffrey Ballet Opens 70th Anniversary Season with CARMEN
Carmen takes place over two weekends, in ten performances only, at the historic Lyric Opera House, 20 North Upper Wacker Drive, from September 18 to 28, 2025.
By: Emmy Rice Jun. 22, 2025
The Joffrey Ballet opens its 70th anniversary season with the U.S. Premiere of Liam Scarlett’s Carmen, a tale of love, betrayal, and defiance set within the gritty confines of a cigarette factory in 1930s Spain. Amid the chaos of a nation on the brink of civil war, the uncompromising and seductive Carmen, who insists on loving whom she chooses, meets Don José, whose consuming devotion ignites a blaze of passion and peril. From the choreographer of the critically acclaimed Frankenstein, Scarlett infuses new depth into the timeless story of a woman who dares to live on her own terms.
Carmen takes place over two weekends, in ten performances only, at the historic Lyric Opera House, 20 North Upper Wacker Drive, from September 18 to 28, 2025.
In this adaptation of Bizet's opera, Scarlett brings new intensity to a performance that pulsates with life—and ends in tragedy. With striking designs by Jon Bausor and Scarlett's signature focus on evocative storytelling, Carmen commands the stage into a tempest of desire and destruction. Learn more about Scarlett here.
Carmen features live music performed by the Lyric Opera Orchestra, conducted by Scott Speck, Music Director of The Joffrey Ballet. Special thanks to Carmen Production Sponsor, Holly Palmer Foundation.
The 2025-2026 season marks three historic milestones: The Joffrey Ballet’s 70th anniversary as one of the world’s premier dance companies, 30 years of calling Chicago home, and 10 years of Christopher Wheeldon’s The Nutcracker. After Carmen, The Joffrey Ballet continues its season with The Nutcracker (December 5 – 28, 2025) followed by a program of ballets by four trailblazing artists of the 20th century– Martha Graham, Glen Tetley, and The Joffrey Ballet co-founders Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino– in American Icons (February 19 – March 1, 2026). Closing out the season is the Chicago premiere of Yuri Possokhov’s Eugene Onegin, a co-production with San Francisco Ballet (June 4 – 14, 2026).
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