Carmen Inside Out is a one-woman tour de force based on George Bizet's original opera CARMEN.   Kirstin Chavez has been a definitive CARMEN throughout the world over the last decade and a half, and now she wants to tell her OWN story of this incredible, iconic character.   With the help of monologues created by Artistic Director Johnathon Pape, original flamenco dance sequences created by Choreographer Sol Koeraus La Argentinita, and a musical arrangement of the original score by arranger/composer Jeffrey Price, Kirstin sets Carmen's colorful inner story on fire and infuses this operatic treasure with new life!

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Born from a desire to share Carmen’s passion and to inspire others with her lust for life, this unique musical and theatrical experience is breaking new ground for communities by providing a new way to experience one of the most intense musical encounters. We witness Carmen after her fatal confrontation with her lover, Don Jose: murdered, on the brink of the afterlife. But before her spirit finds rest, she recounts and illuminates the true inner-story of her life with us through spoken monologues, choreographed Flamenco dance, and Bizet’s celebrated opera score.

At the heart of this project is audience interaction and connection: an intense face-to-face encounter with Carmen’s smoldering charisma--provoking people of all backgrounds to not only listen, but to interact, reflect, respond, and strive to better themselves and their communities. Following each performance, we invite the audience to join the artists and a selected panel of esteemed community leaders in a “Conversation Space” of reflection and commentary about the performance experience: sharing ideas on women’s rights and the value of strong women, values and issues of modern society, artistic entrepreneurship and the future of opera, living in and for a global community, being true to one’s self, loving one’s life and living it to the fullest, expressing rather than repressing emotion and facing one’s fears.