Tickets Carmen - Verona Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself influenced by the narrative poem "The Gypsies" (1824) by Pushkin. Mérimée had read the poem in Russian by 1840 and translated it into French in 1852.