English and the World · Spain · 46 · Seville · A1–C2 · A1–A2 free
A cigarette girl who wants to be free, a barber who fixes everything, a seducer who laughs at heaven, and a city that has inspired more operas than almost any other. Choose your level.
Seville on stage
Many famous operas happen in Seville: Carmen, The Barber of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and others. Most of the composers never visited the city, but for them Seville was a place of sun, music, love and danger.
The most famous is Carmen, by the French composer Georges Bizet, from 1875. Carmen works in a tobacco factory. She meets a soldier, Don José, and he falls in love with her. But Carmen wants to be free, and the story ends badly, outside the bullring.
The Royal Tobacco Factory
The tobacco factory was real. It is a huge stone building, and in the 19th century thousands of women worked there. They had to make cigars by hand, and they had to work long hours in the heat. But they didn’t have to be silent: travellers wrote about their talk, their jokes and their songs.
Today the building is part of the University of Seville. Students have to go to classes there, but visitors don’t have to buy a ticket: you can walk in and see the old courtyards.
🦉 Want more? Sophia explains have to, must and the other modal verbs in How Sure, How Allowed, How Obliged (Philo & Sophia, Lesson 6).
Language: have to and don’t have to
| Meaning | Form | Example |
|---|---|---|
| it is necessary | have to / has to + verb | Students have to go to classes. |
| it is not necessary | don’t / doesn’t have to + verb | Visitors don’t have to buy a ticket. |
| in the past | had to / didn’t have to | They had to work in the heat. |
| question | Do / Does … have to? | Do we have to pay? |
⚠️ don’t have to means “it isn’t necessary”, not “it’s forbidden”: You don’t have to pay (it’s free). For “it’s forbidden”, say you mustn’t or you can’t.
Read the texts first. Press “Check my answers” at the end.
Choose the best answer.
1. Did most of the composers visit Seville?
2. Where does Carmen work?
3. What does Carmen want?
4. What is the tobacco factory today?
Write have, has or had.
5. Students to go to classes.
6. The singer to practise every day.
7. In the 19th century, the women to work in the heat. (past)
8. Do we to buy a ticket?
Write don’t, doesn’t or didn’t.
9. Visitors have to buy a ticket. It’s free.
10. The women have to be silent. (past)
11. My brother have to work on Sunday.
12. You have to know the story: the singers explain everything!
Go there!
Visit: walk into the old tobacco factory, now the University, and see its courtyards. Then go to the Maestranza bullring by the river, where Carmen’s story ends, and look at the opera house next to it, the Teatro de la Maestranza. Before you go, listen to the famous Habanera from Carmen.
Your task: write six sentences about your school or work, with have to and don’t have to.
It tells how a city most composers never visited became the most popular setting in opera, what the real cigarette-makers of the tobacco factory were like, how a Spanish monk’s play about a seducer gave the world Don Juan, and why Carmen failed on its first night, with grammar, practice, etymology and a visit plan.
The A1–A2 version above is free for everyone.
It tells how a city most composers never visited became the most popular setting in opera, what the real cigarette-makers of the tobacco factory were like, how a Spanish monk’s play about a seducer gave the world Don Juan, and why Carmen failed on its first night, with grammar, practice, etymology and a visit plan.
The A1–A2 version above is free for everyone.