http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7333
--- Comment #7 from Dan Kegel dank@kegel.com 2008-11-28 13:40:07 --- I'm still getting exactly the same error. Plus, it's harder to get into 256 color mode these days; I did it today with sudo sh /etc/init.d/gdm stop (press F2 and log in) startx -- -depth 8 (Ubuntu isn't quite happy with that; it mostly worked, but the user switcher crashed. But that's not wine's fault.)
Maybe you're using a newer version of the game? My copy of the installed exe has timestamp from 1995: 444944 1995-07-13 17:00 CARMEN.EXE What does yours show?