One of the world’s best-loved operas has been given a radically different ending in Italy, with the heroine killing her tormentor rather than being killed herself, in a stand against violence to women.

In what is believed to be a world first, a production of Bizet’s Carmen will see the gypsy Carmen shoot her thwarted admirer Don José with a pistol that she grabs off him, rather than being stabbed to death by him.

The dramatic departure from operatic orthodoxy is an attempt to shine the spotlight on the modern-day abuse and mistreatment of women, an issue given added resonance by the outrage over the behaviour of Harvey Weinstein and Donald Trump.

The new version of Carmen will open at Florence’s opera house this weekend, with the first few nights already sold out.

“As far as we know it is the first time that the ending to Carmen has been changed,” the opera house’s Paolo Klun told The Telegraph.

“We think it’s important that the theatre should not be a conservative place of musical culture, it should not be a museum. It’s a place where debate can be initiated. Carmen was written 150 years ago in a very different cultural context. Times change.”