Plaza de Toros de la Real Maestranza: Carmen's Last Act
Why is it significant?
Stand on the Paseo de Cristóbal Colón in front of the bullring's white and ochre façade and find the grand gateway with its iron grille. This is the Puerta del Príncipe, the Prince's Gate, the most famous door in the bullfighting world.
Key Facts
| Place | Plaza de Toros de la Real Maestranza: Carmen's Last Act |
|---|---|
| Address | Paseo de Cristóbal Colón 12, 41001 Sevilla, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 37.38570, -5.99910 |
| Part of Walk | Opera City: Carmen, Figaro and Don Juan in Seville's Arenal |
| Generated | Generated |
Stand on the Paseo de Cristóbal Colón in front of the bullring's white and ochre façade and find the grand gateway with its iron grille. This is the Puerta del Príncipe, the Prince's Gate, the most famous door in the bullfighting world.
The Real Maestranza de Caballería, an association of noble horsemen founded in 1670, began building this ring in 1749. It was not finished until 1881. Over those hundred and thirty years the plans changed, money ran out and builders came and went, which is why the arena is not a perfect circle but a slightly irregular oval. It holds some twelve thousand people.
When a matador has a truly triumphant afternoon here, the crowd carries him out on its shoulders through the Puerta del Príncipe, and on towards the river. Bizet gave that kind of hero to Carmen: Escamillo, the toreador, whose swaggering song in the second act is perhaps the most hummed tune in all of opera. And for the last act, Bizet brought everyone here, to a square outside the bullring of Seville on the day of the corrida.
Inside, the crowd roars for Escamillo. Outside, Don José, who has lost everything for Carmen, begs her to come back to him. She tells him she is free, that she was born free and will die free, and throws his ring at his feet. As the fanfares sound for the toreador's victory, José stabs her. It is the brutal genius of the score: celebration and murder at the same moment, with only a wall between them. Bullfighting itself still divides Spain, and Seville too, more bitterly than any opera.
So the walk ends where Carmen does. You began across the river, looking at a city dreamt by composers who never came. On the way you found the real things behind the dream: gold and forced labour, a penitent mistaken for a seducer, an inquisition's castle across the water and a single voice singing from a balcony. Seville gave the world its operas, and it is still singing... listen as you walk back along the river.