Producer Ellen Kent and her company Opera & Ballet International have been responsible for bringing to the UK much of the Eastern European opera seen here in the last seven years. From her base at the Chatham Historic Dockyard, she has been working with the Chisinau National Opera since 1996 and in 1999 the two companies signed an exclusive five-year contract, believed to be the first such contract between a major foreign national opera company and a British production company.

Opera & Ballet International bring now to Hammersmith one of Bizet's most famous works, Carmen.

Carmen will be performed by the Chisinau National Opera, whose stylish and exciting productions of Aida, Turandot and Tosca have won enthusiastic support from audiences everywhere. This production includes a replica of Seville's main square with fountains and orange trees and features the famous Romale Gypsy Dance Troupe and the white Spanish stallion featured in the film Gladiator.

Carmen is the story of a bewitching gypsy girl, whose tantalising beauty lures a soldier to desertion and leads to her own murder - and the score includes one of the famous melody after another: the Habanera, the Seguidilla, the Flower Song, the Chanson Boheme and perhaps the best-known baritone aria of all, the Toreador's song.

Opera & Ballet International Web site