Carmen is <i>not</i> a tramp.</p><p>Or so says Beth Clayton, who is portraying the eponymous Gypsy in Fort Worth Opera's production of one of the most popular operas in the repertory. Carmen opens Saturday at Bass Hall, and with it Fort Worth Opera’s third festival.</p><p>The festival is being held earlier this year, because of the quadrennial Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, which starts May 22. The opera festival, running through May 10, also includes productions of Rossini's frothy <i>Cinderella (La Cenerentola)</i> and Jake Heggie's gripping <i>Dead Man Walking.</i></p><p>Carmen, Georges Bizet's free-spirited seductress is often portrayed as such a you-know-what that you wonder why the opera's men pursue her. But Clayton, a Southern Methodist University alumna with a major operatic career, imagines "a certain elegance in her somewhere."</p><p>"I see Carmen as very powerful," she says, "with an animal magnetism that men can't resist, even those that can't quite get to her. I like to think of her as a force field."</p><p>Carmen has become a signature role for the Arkansas-born mezzo, who has sung it with, among other companies, the New York City Opera and Santa Fe Opera. Joining her in the local production, directed by John de los Santos and conducted by music director Joe Illick, are Roger Honeywell as Don Jose, Morgan Smith as Escamillo and Sandra Lopez as Micaela.</p><p>"This is a very traditional and sensual <i>Carmen,"</i> Fort Worth Opera general director Darren K. Woods says.</p><p>"We wanted a blockbuster to start with. <i>Cenerentola</i> was driven by the availability of Isabel Leonard [for the title role]. And I had always wanted to do <i>Dead Man Walking</i> since I saw it in San Francisco. I've seen it just about every place it's been done since then."</p><p><i>Cinderella,</i> which opens April 26, is based on the familiar fairy tale, with some surprising twists. Joining Leonard in the cast are Michele Angelini as Prince Ramiro, Andrew Garland as Dandini and Rod Nelman as Don Magnifico.</p><p><i>Dead Man Walking,</i> premiered in 2000 by San Francisco Opera, has become one of the most-performed American operas in recent decades. Like the 1995 Tim Robbins film, it's based on the book of the same name by Sister Helen Prejean, itself based on the Roman Catholic nun's experiences as a spiritual adviser to men on Louisiana's Death Row.</p><p>Appearing as Sister Helen in the opera is Robynne Redmon, with Daniel Okulitch as the convicted murderer Joseph de Rocher and Sheryl Woods as his mother, Mrs. Patrick de Rocher.</p><p>As part of the festival, Prejean and Heggie will participate in a panel discussion Thursday at Southern Methodist University. Titled "Arts, Social Change and Human Rights," the panel will also include Woods; Jonathan Pell, artistic director of the Dallas Opera; and Rick Halperin, director of SMU's Human Rights Education Program.</p><p>Pell doubtless will remind the audience that Heggie's next opera, <i>Moby-Dick,</i> based on the Herman Melville novel, will be premiered by the Dallas Opera in April 2010.</p><p><b>A new identity</b></p><p>After six decades of spreading out its productions during the September-to-May main season, Fort Worth Opera switched to the concentrated festival format in 2007. The 2008 festival represented a quantum leap in both daring programming and performance quality.</p><p>All three of the Bass Hall productions -- <i>Turandot, Lucia de Lammermoor</i> and <i>Of Mice and Men</i> -- had capable stagings and some first-class singers. Even Hungarian composer Peter Eotvos' prickly operatic version of Tony Kushner's <i>Angels in America</i> was vividly realized in multiple performances at the Scott Theatre.</p><p>"It's certainly gotten easier to do," Woods says of his third festival. "We have our groove on, know a little more what to expect."</p><p>The looming recession prompted a scaling back from last year's four operas to this year's three. And last year's $4.5 million budget was cut to $4.1 million this year.</p><p>"But we've surpassed our subscription goals already," Woods says, "even in this bad economy. We're 12 percent ahead of where we were last year on ticket sales in general. And we have more out-of-town groups coming -- a group from the Denver opera guild, a group from upstate New York, from L.A. and several others."</p><p>With the Dallas Opera set to reap international headlines with its October move to the new Dallas Center for the Performing Arts' Winspear Opera House, Fort Worth Opera has made headlines of its own with a different format, and different programming, in a more concentrated time frame.</p><p>"In one metroplex, there's an opportunity to experience two companies that produce differently," says Marc A. Scorca, president and CEO of the New York-based service organization Opera America. "In an era of reduced resources, one of which is time, having this diversity is healthy."</p><p>He also notes: "Performing three or four operas in proximity gives presenting companies leeway to include one or two lesser-known works. These coexist with the masterpieces in a kind of dialogue, so people can experience the range of opera in a comparative way in a short period of time." <b>Fort Worth Opera festival</b></p><p>&#9632; Saturday through May 10</p><p>&#9632; Bass Hall, Fourth and Commerce streets, Fort Worth.</p><p>&#9632; Carmen: 8 p.m. Saturday and May 8; 2 p.m. May 3.</p><p>&#9632; Cinderella (La Cenerentola): 2 p.m. April 26; 8 p.m. May 1 and 9.</p><p>&#9632; Dead Man Walking: 8 p.m. May 2; 2 p.m. May 10.</p><p>&#9632; Season tickets $31 to $394; single tickets $19 to $159.</p><p>&#9632; 817-731-0726; <a href="http://www.fwopera.org" target="blank">www.fwopera.org</a></p><p>&#9632; The free panel discussion "Arts, Social Change and Human Rights" will be at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Hughes-Trigg Student Center Theatre, Southern Methodist University, 3140 Dyer St., Dallas