The following morning Carmen gets into an altercation at the tobacco factory and cuts one of the girls after a fight in which the whole factory is involved.

Don Jose, after Carmen's wild, sensuous dance, loses his heart to her, and that night when she passes by the breach in the wall where he is on guard, he follows her off while the smugglers enter the city. Escamillo asks Carmen to accompany him to Seville, and she is tempted to listen to him, but Pastia reminds her that her beauty is at present for Don Jose and she must carry through their plans. Escamillo has loved Carmen for a long time, but she, while attracted to him, has clung to her liberty. She is wooed unsuccessfully by Morales, a brother officer of Don Jose's, and also by Escamillo, a young toreador on his way to Seville to enter the bullring there. The night Carmen dances in the tavern, she is the center of attraction. Carmen secures work in a tobacco factory near the city wall, to account for her presence near Don Jose, and it is also announced that she will dance at the tavern in the evenings. Carmen is sent by Pastia, the leader of the smugglers and the local tavern keeper, to fascinate Don Jose and make him forget his duties and give the smugglers an opportunity to bring their goods into the city.

The smugglers are foiled in their attempt to get their illegal goods into the little town by Don Jose, an officer in the regiment stationed there. Carmen is a half-wild, fascinating creature, a gypsy by birth, and living with a band of smugglers in the mountains near the coast of Spain.

Carmen opera plot