For Bizet himself, success, rather than love, proved elusive and fickle. In spite of all the care he poured into his final opera, a sizzling tale of passion and jealousy set in 1820s Andalusia, its Paris première in March 1875 was a spectacular flop. Botched up by second-rate singers and musicians, slowed down by interminable scene changes, taxed with obscenity, it was withdrawn from the stage after only a few weeks.

Bizet, who was 36, died heartbroken. Had he lived a few months longer, he would have seen his fortunes turn: Carmen was next taken to Vienna where everyone loved it, not least Wagner, Brahms and Tchaikovsky, who predicted that it would eventually become the most famous opera on the planet.

He was right of course: Carmen has become as mythical as the "Mona Lisa", its title (Latin for "song", but also "spell") an apt summary of its enduring pull on audiences. While it has become hard to be shocked by its so-called licentiousness, there is a touching timelessness about this tragedy of a couple who falls in and out of love, he driven to murder by passion and she doggedly refusing to be pinned down by men or laws.

One of Carmen's greatest modern fans is Cédric Monnoye, the founder of Idée Fixe, a tiny Belgian company that stages outdoor classical concerts and opera productions around the country's poshest monuments. Monnoye is about to stage his third Carmen in the company's 16-year existence, this time in front of Bruges' city hall and on the grounds of the Ooidonk Castle in Deinze, plus spots in Wallonia.

Led by Yannis Pouspourikas, the resident conductor at the Vlaamse Opera, staged by François de Carpentries and starring the young mezzos Anne-Fleur Inizan and Romie Estèves in the title role, the production promises to be a slick and entertaining affair - provided you don't mind the amplified sound system.

Don't expect any radical new insights either - Idée Fixe believes more in feasting listeners than in challenging them. Not that many will mind, wrapped in pashminas to fend off the evening chill as they take in the opera's beauties: the famous habañera, which has become its signature tune, although it isn't actually by Bizet (he re-used an existing tune by a Spanish composer); the "Lilla Pastia" song, in which Carmen exerts her seduction on the upright Don José; the despondent aria in which she reads her imminent death in a pack of cards; and the lovers' gruelling final argument set against the cheers of a bull fight.

Not to forget the ode to the cigarette sung by factory wenches in Act I, their voices as light and heady as the whorls of smoke they depict - to my mind the opera's loveliest passage and, in these sexually liberated but tobacco-free times, the only one to retain a faint whiff of scandal.

9-11 September, 21.00
Bruges City Hall Burg 12

16-18 September, 21.00
Ooidonk Castle Ooidonkdreef 9, Deinze

www.ideefixe.be