BIZET: CARMEN
THE OPERA AND ITS COMPOSER
Carmen is both a masterpiece, and ‘the most fantastic success in the annals of Opera.’ Films have been made of it; there have been jazz and rock ballet versions. It has been updated into an African-American setting in the Broadway musical Carmen Jones. A Russian has done a version for 47 percussion instruments and an American has done one for solo kazoo and symphony orchestra. A sound extravaganza has been produced called The Naked Carmen.
It is possibly the most colourful and exotic of operas. It was sexually explicit in advance of its time. Indeed, before a regular performance, the cleavage has to be sorted out, so that, to the audience, its possessor appears to be sexy but not sluttish.
It has been known for a prima donna to object vociferously to the little piece of black fabric she was expected to wear as a dress. On the other hand, one who seemed she might burst out of her bra earned ‘the undying devotion of stage hands and cognoscenti alike.’
The first night, at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 3 March 1875, was a historic failure and the attendance was poor at subsequent performances during the first run. At the première, the opera went reasonably well up to the tuneful Toreador Song in Act 2, but, after that, it was mainly ‘received in glacial silence.’ The venue and its bourgeois-dominated clientèle were not receptive to a sensational groundbreaking work such as this. But there was an amazing reversal of fortune. By 1959, the Opéra-Comique had chalked up its 2,942nd performance of it.
The failure of the première plunged Bizet back into chronic depression, thus aggravating his already poor health, sapping his resistance and leading to his death exactly three months later.
The libretto is very loosely based on an 1845 short story by a distinguished French writer, Prosper Mérimée. This was adapted by a well-tried and highly successful combination of librettists, Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy.1
Had it not been for Carmen, Bizet today might be remembered merely for the ‘best tune’ Au fond du Temple Saint, which comes from his Les Pêcheurs de Perles. He would hardly have ranked among the great composers. How and why he produced Carmen, this ground-breaking opera, is a mystery. Tchaikovsky thought Carmen was a masterpiece ‘in the true sense of the word’: it was ‘one of those rare works which reflect the aspirations of an entire era.’ Brahms, not someone one would automatically think of, was a considerable admirer and got his publisher to supply him with the full score. Later, Vaughan Williams ‘went to scoff but remained to pray.’
Indeed, its influence on other composers was immense: in particular, the composers of earthy, realistic ‘verismo’ opera – for example, Mascagni in Cavalleria rusticana – built on ‘its low-life ambience, and its moments of brutal passion.’ But ‘the elegance, the light-fingered, brilliant scoring and the clear, sometimes astringent harmonic palette also left its mark on Verdi.’
On 3 June 1875, Georges Bizet, a very disappointed man, died of quinsy, a throat abscess. He was aged only 36. Earlier, he may have had rheumatic fever, which may have been connected. He was also a chain-smoker.
Bizet was born in Paris on 25 October 1838. He showed prodigious talent. He was so keen on books that his parents had to hide them to avoid him neglecting his musical career. He was admitted to the Conservatoire when he was ten. Liszt thought him one of the three best pianists in Europe. He won the coveted Prix de Rome. But enduring success eluded him and he spent his time doing hack work, often for Gounod, for whom he had a great regard. Bizet’s opera Les Pêcheurs de Perles (1863) was a failure. ‘There were neither fishermen in the libretto nor pearls in the music,’ wrote a critic at the time. La Jolie Fille de Perth (1867) and the incidental music for Daudet’s play L’Arlésienne (1872) fared little better.
Bizet was a wild character. He had little respect for his superiors. He fought with a gondolier; he frequented prostitutes; he had a child by his mother’s maid; he set up house with a famous courtesan, Elisabeth-Céleste Venard, known as Mogador.
Bizet joined the National Guard for the Franco-Prussian War, and remained in Paris during the Siege. He and his wife Geneviève escaped from Paris at the beginning of the Commune which followed. He parted from her in 1874, but loyally supported her and his mother-in-law, despite both women being seriously unhinged. After Bizet’s death, Geneviève recovered and married a rich lawyer. She ran a distinguished salon and provided a source of inspiration for Marcel Proust and the basis for one of his characters, La Duchesse de Guermantes.
Bizet died at Bougival, near Paris, in the house on the Seine where he had finished composing Carmen.
One of the challenges in performing Carmen (and indeed Carmen) is to avoid vulgarity and sensationalism. As the great conductor Sir Thomas Beecham observed, ‘any singer who fails to make her portrayal of Carmen in accordance with the refinement of the music is doing something that is an aesthetic offence … to make a harridan of Carmen is at complete variance with the fact, for the people of Spain have the best manners in the world.’2
Fundamentally, she is a capricious Romany, and José is a man possessed by love. However, she is also a harlot and he is a man driven to commit a crime passionel. Around a century and a half later, placing their characterisation at the right point on the spectrum remains a compelling challenge and makes every performance unique.
WHO’S WHO AND WHAT’S WHAT
The story below is based on the libretto. Certain directors may amend opera stories to suit their production.
From the crash of percussion which opens the Prelude, we know that we are in colourful Seville, in southern Spain, renowned for its bullfights. The strings announce, and then the full orchestra thunders out, Toréador en garde!, that famous tune which Escamillo, a toreador, will be associated with throughout the opera. Carmencita (Carmen), a whore who works in a tobacco factory, will fall for this celebrity.
But the mood of the Prelude suddenly changes and we hear a searing, baleful, fate-loaded tune which will end the opera and mark the complete disintegration of the character of Don José, a conscientious corporal (‘brigadier’ in French), who becomes infatuated with Carmen, and ultimately kills her.
Meanwhile, dragoons under the command of Moralès, another corporal, keep guard outside the factory. They try to flirt with Micaëla, a nice country girl with whom Don José is in love, and whom Don José’s mother has sent in the hope that he will marry her. The dragoons inform her that Don José will come when the guard is changed. We soon hear that this is about to happen, preceded by a chorus of street-boys.
It is break time in the factory. But Don José is not interested in the girls who emerge, smoking. They include Carmen, who particularly fascinates the young men. But she is irritated that Don José is not immediately captivated by her charms. She flaunts herself and flings a flower at him at the end of the well-known Habanera.3 He is shocked and very disturbed by this sorceress, and is unable to give Micaëla the welcome she deserves when she returns to find him. However, he decides he will marry her, as his mother wishes.
There is an interruption. In the factory, there has been a fight and it is not clear whether Carmen went for Manuelita, another worker, or vice versa. The officer, Lieutenant Zuniga, sends Don José in to sort it out.
Carmen tries her charms on Zuniga. He has her arrested. She then entices Don José with the Seguidilla,4 about a place of assignation, the bodega of Lillas Pastia. He loosens her bonds and she seizes the opportunity to escape. Having failed in his duty, he himself is imprisoned.
A couple of months later, Carmen, and Frasquita and Mercédès, two gypsy girl friends of hers, are in Lillas Pastia’s bodega, the haunt of Seville’s demi-monde of smugglers and prostitutes. The leading smugglers El Dancaïro and El Remendado recruit her.
Lieutenant Zuniga is also there, and fancies Carmen. She however falls for Escamillo, the celebrity toreador.
Don José, having served his sentence, returns to woo Carmen. Her flower had been his comfort in prison. She tries unsuccessfully to persuade him to disobey orders by ignoring a roll call. But they are interrupted by the return of Zuniga, his superior, who has come to take Carmen. They fight. After this, José has little option other than to disobey orders and to join the smugglers.
At the smugglers’ camp in the mountains, the girls draw cards: these predict death for Carmen and Don José.
Micaëla comes in search of José: his mother is dying and wants to forgive him before she dies. When Escamillo comes looking for Carmen, he and Don José fight. Carmen intervenes to save the toreador, who invites them all to the bullfight. Having been told that his mother is dying, Don José goes away with Micaëla.
Later, outside the bullring in Seville, Carmen’s girl friends warn her that José is in town. With the crowd in the bullring acclaiming the victorious Escamillo, Carmen and Don José confront each other. He has sacrificed everything for her, and, when she rejects him, he stabs her.
THE INTERVAL: TALKING POINTS
The first night failure: the audience
The first night failure: the story
The first night failure: the audience
Although Carmen complied with the regulation that, at the Théâtre de l’Opéra-Comique, the performance had to be in French and comprise a mixture of music and spoken word,5 it was an unsuitable venue for its première.
A show there did not have to be a comedy; but Opéra-Comique audiences were used to shows which were reasonably light, and pleasant. This made it a popular rendezvous for marriage interviews and family parties.
Roméo et Juliette had been performed there, so ‘death’ was not prohibited. But there was a world of difference between staging Gounod’s sentimental tale and the realistic, sexy, violent Carmen. Although the audience might even be expected to welcome the retribution that Carmen brings down upon herself, the staging of her murder was totally unprecedented, frightening and horrifying, not least for young girls. The sexy seductress, the smoking chorus girls who scratched each other’s eyes out – they could ruin the wedding business, which needed shows that were ‘joli, clair, bien ordonné.’
The Carmen was the leading mezzo-soprano6 of the Opéra-Comique, the tiny, vivacious Célestine Galli-Marié (1840–1905). She was an excellent actress who had starred in Ambroise Thomas’s successful, charming, but unpassionate Mignon. Galli-Marié possessed a ‘cat-like grace’ and a very distinctive timbre, with slightly harsh top notes which must have helped to convey her sensuality, and the impression that she possessed sexual knowledge. We owe the Habanera to her, because she insisted on having a solo at that moment.
Whereas female characters were normally kept towards the background, the Carmen of Galli-Marié was certainly neither respectable nor ‘suitable’. She was criticised for exaggerating Carmen’s vices, and for not tempering her passions. The ‘heartless, faithless, lawless gypsy’ was portrayed with a realism ‘that would at best be bearable in an operetta in a small theatre.’ The press notices described the opera as obscene. One critic wrote that Galli-Marié’s interpretation ‘deserved correction in the police court.’
During the five months of stormy rehearsals, the production team became aware that there would be difficulties. The chorus were unused to realistic acting, and the women disliked smoking7 and having to flirt with the soldiers. Also, the musicians found the score exceptionally difficult.
Not surprisingly, morale sagged. One of the co-directors of the Opéra-Comique resigned; the other one foolishly told the press that he disliked the music. He was so concerned that, when a Government Minister applied for a box on the first night, he advised him first to attend the dress rehearsal and check it out. The librettists tried to get the realism toned down, but Bizet was not having it; nor was Galli-Marié. All this was public knowledge – the poster advertising it portrayed the final ghastly moments – so the audience was conditioned to expect a contentious production from the start.
The influential burgeoning bourgeoisie really just wanted ‘caressing melodies, pleasant stories and plots which would help to obliviate the worries of daily existence.’ That is why Donizetti, Saint-Saëns, Gounod and Massenet were so successful, and Bizet was not. The bourgeoisie did not want to endure the noise of those vulgar, unmusical Spanish castanets. Twenty years later, old Bernard Shaw would thunder that Emma Calvé (1858–1942), shocked him beyond measure. She was a ‘superstitious, pleasure-loving, good-for-nothing’ Carmen, ‘with no power but the power of seduction, which she exercises without sense or decency.’ It is no wonder Carmen is so popular today.
The first night failure: the story
There was another, separate reason for the failure: lèse-majesté towards a highly respected French author. Many people in the audience will have been familiar with Mérimée’s short story. He had only died a few years previously. As a Senator and Member of the Académie-Française, he was very distinguished. He has been described as ‘one of the great masters of French style during the nineteenth century’ and ‘at the very head of the French prose writers of the century.’ Bizet’s librettists showed little respect for Merimée’s story: they merely picked some bits from it, and, for very good reasons, added some bits of their own.
The opening will have been unrecognisable. The opera misses out the first part of the book. And who is this woman Micaëla who dominates the opening? She is nice, unlike Carmen, but there is nobody in the book by that name, and no reference to such a person except possibly in a throwaway line in the death cell, when Mérimée’s José, before being garrotted, asks for a locket to be delivered to a woman back home.
Who is Escamillo? The book refers to some useless picador, the whore’s latest lover. He is injured in the bullring, but there is no victorious celebrity toreador.
And, as to the dénouement, Mérimée had the propriety to have José murder (and bury) Carmen in a lonely valley, not in public outside the bullring at exactly the moment Escamillo is proclaimed victor.
Members of the audience must have felt like a modern audience seeing a film adaptation of a book which plays fast and loose with the story, however necessary it may be to do so in order to render it effective in a very different medium.
Prosper Mérimée (1803–1870) is best known today for his short stories such as Colomba (about Corsica) and Carmen. He died three weeks after the surrender of Napoleon III at Sedan, which marked the collapse of the Second Empire. He combined being a civil servant, an archaeologist, and a man of letters. He started his literary career by publishing, as a hoax, works he claimed were authored by others, when they were actually by him. He was highly influential within the imperial family. He became a close friend of Madame de Montijo, Empress Eugénie’s mother, who may well have been the source of his tale about Carmen (1845). Some said he was a hanger-on and toady. These impressions may have added to his unpopularity and his being regarded as a cold-hearted cynic. His style is naturalistic, using literature to depict local colour and exotic scenes. This was at a time when there were no films or TV, and travel was limited.
Recitative or spoken dialogue
The score for the première in March 1875 was far too long, even though it had been cut during rehearsal. The performance lasted for four-and-a-half hours. (Today it lasts less than two-and-a-half hours).
Nearly eight months after the première, for the Vienna production (in German) the dialogue was shortened and replaced with musical recitative, in accordance with Bizet’s original intention. The recitative was composed by Guiraud8, a close friend and class-mate of Bizet. Both versions are performed today.
Guiraud’s recitatives have attracted much criticism. Saint-Saëns disliked them, although he was very enthusiastic about the opera. Some of the recitatives are regarded as good; others are ‘undeniably second-rate’ and are said to fall flat next to Bizet’s music. One recent critic even called them ‘inescapably third-rate’, writing, ‘every time they come thudding in, the dramatic temperature drops.’
Aside from their musical weakness, Guiraud’s recitatives omit some useful background information which is given in the spoken dialogue, such as Don José’s family background. This makes some of the narrative hard to follow for the attentive listener, assuming, of course, that the person is both listening to the spoken words and understands French. The recitatives also cut some humorous passages, such as when one of the smugglers refers to Gibraltar, the source of the contraband: he says that in Gibraltar you can see the English, masses of them, ‘de jolis hommes les Anglais: un peu froids mais distingués.’ The omission of such text offends those who regard Carmen as ‘above all a comedy.’
There is no easy solution. Spoken dialogue has its own problems today. When describing a production at Covent Garden, Placido Domingo wondered just how sensible it is to ‘have a New Zealander, an American, a Spaniard and a Belgian speaking French to a British audience.’ Joan Sutherland stormed out of a rehearsal when told that they were going to use dialogue rather than musical recitative. She knew that her ‘incorrigible’ Australian accent did not suit the spoken aspects of Micaëla’s role.
Today, there is an obsession with authenticity, ‘the authentic performance.’ Here, as so often, it is misplaced.9 Because of the need for cuts, and the difficulty over musical recitative, we are unlikely to get an authentic performance of the Carmen which Bizet himself would have wanted.
Why is Carmen so great?
Until Carmen, opera had tended to avoid depicting real, up-to-date contemporary situations. Historical subjects in period dress, and mythology, had been safer. Similarly, reigning monarchs did not object to sanitised comic opera – nobody would have dared depict the monarch as comic.10
Carmen’s ‘brutal force and naturalness … the overheated southern temperament, the dazzling and vital orchestra, the wonderful harmonies, the inescapable melodies’ represented a breakthrough, new in Bizet’s time (and new for the composer of Les Pêcheurs de Perles). It is a musical landmark.
The portraiture, for example, the gradual disintegration of Don José, is masterly. The opera is also full of examples of Bizet’s use of music, particularly contrast, to create atmosphere. A good example is the well-known entr’acte before the scene in the mountains: after a short introduction on the flute and harp, the woodwind is joined by throbbing strings, reminding us that although at first sight this is seemingly a rococo paradise, it is actually a scene of serious romance. Shortly after this, the vacant gypsy girls tell their fatuous fortunes, their giggles depicted by staccato woodwind. Their pipe-dreams are interrupted by crude reality: Carmen, at first nervously, then with two harsh downward scratches on the strings, discovers her own fearful and fateful future. With the score marked ‘simply and very evenly’, she quietly faces up to the truth: la carte impitoyable relentlessly discloses one outcome for her: la mort – death.
Carmen provides an alternative to the ‘workmanlike, clever, scented mixture of little character and much sentimentalism, the atmosphere of sighs, caresses, spasms and tears’ that we hear so much in the works of Donizetti, Saint-Saëns, Gounod, Massenet and indeed the modern West End and Broadway musical. It also provides a completely successful alternative to the works of Bizet’s contemporary, Wagner.
ACT BY ACT
Prelude and Act 1
Seville around 1820, in the square outside the guardhouse of a tobacco factory
We may be in colourful Andalusia, at the bullfight with the toreador, but the famous Prelude pulls us up sharply with a pause: we then hear the baleful and haunting ‘fate’ theme which will also conclude the opera. Bizet is warning us that he is about to present us with the unpalatable truth that, in real life, behind the superficial picture postcard scene which we all enjoy, we find the complex and deeply disturbing consequences of human emotions, the most basic of which is raw lust.
The curtain rises on the bored Corporal Moralès at his guardhouse outside the tobacco factory. A country girl, Micaëla comes in search of Don José, another corporal, but he is still off duty. The soldiers unsuccessfully try to entice her into the guardhouse, while she waits for him.
Don José’s relief guard comes on duty, preceded by street boys. Moralès tells him that Micaëla has been looking for him. The lieutenant, Zuniga, observes that Micaëla is a different kind of girl to the cigarette workers. Don José says that he loves her.
The young men of the city come to ogle the cigarette girls having their break and puffing their fags.11 Carmencita stands out among the girls; Don José ignores her but she notices him. The young men ask her when she will return their love. She says she does not know, maybe never. Love is untameable, like a bird, unpredictable: L’amour est un oiseau rebelle (the Habanera). Needled by Don José’s manner, she takes a flower from her prominent bosom and flings it at him.
The bell rings for the new shift and the girls go. Don José stays behind, disturbed. Just as he is thinking about the sorceress’s flower – its scent is strong, the flower pretty – Micaëla returns. She tells him his mother has sent her, with a letter, some money and to give him a kiss from her. Don José misses the point, and he confuses her by talking about some demon, some peril. The letter asks him to marry her, but she leaves to let him read it. He decides to put the sorceress out of his mind and marry Micaëla.
There is an interruption. There has been a row in the factory. Two of the girls, Carmen and Manuelita, have been fighting. The Lieutenant tells José to take a party to see what has been happening. Don José brings Carmen out. She insolently taunts them, Tra la la la la. The Lieutenant, himself quite taken with her, tells her she will go to prison and orders José to bind her hands.12
José and Carmen are left alone. She flirts with him. He is increasingly captivated by her, as she sings the Seguidilla, Près des ramparts de Séville, about Lillas Pastia’s bodega, a place of assignation. She suggests that he loosen the rope and he complies. The Lieutenant brings the warrant, and she flashes her eyes at him. And, as José marches her off, she gives him a shove and runs away.13
Act 2
Lillas Pastia’s bodega
Carmen, with two gypsy friends, Frasquita and Mercédès, are in Lillas Pastia’s bodega, where soldiers, including Lieutenant Zuniga, mingle with Seville’s demi-monde of criminals and prostitutes. The gypsies dance and Carmen sings the Gypsy Song, Les tringles des sistres tintaient (‘the jingles tinkled and the tambourines and guitars played ever more furiously, Tra la la la la’). As it accelerates, Carmen and her friends join the dance.
Just as Frasquita is asking for the soldiers to leave – it is time for business – the victorious toreador Escamillo14 arrives and sings of the bullring, Toréador en garde. He makes a pass at Carmen and she is captivated. He tells her that, at his next encounter with danger, he would like to invoke her name. And then leaves.
Carmen, Pastia and two smugglers, El Dancaïro and El Remendado, agree that to pull off their next job they need deception, the skill of a woman: Nous avons besoin de vous. To their surprise, Carmen is reluctant to be involved, because she is in love. The smugglers suggest that she should combine crime and love. She explains that she is waiting for a soldier who was imprisoned for a couple of months for doing her a good turn. Don José is heard singing in the background ‘The Dragoon of Alcala’, a song in which the dragoon is off to visit his lover: Halte-là! Qui va là? Dragon d’Alcala! The smugglers tell Carmen to inveigle José into joining them.
Carmen dances with the castanets for Don José – La la la la – but he interrupts her because, in the background, he can hear the bugles announcing the roll-call, indicating that he must return to barracks.
She is stupefied. She taunts him: his priorities are all wrong. How could she have been so stupid as to dance for such a fool? In the Flower Song, he tells her15 that the flower which she once threw at him had been his comfort in prison. It had maintained his single obsession, to see her. She continues: if he really loved her he would carry her away on his horse into the mountains. He declares that he will not desert. They say goodbye. Just as he goes to the door to obey the call to barracks, there is a knock: Lieutenant Zuniga has come to have Carmen. He explains that he is rather better than a corporal, and tells José to clear off. José refuses, and they fight.
The gypsies return as Carmen tries to separate the two. In view of their plans, the gypsies need to detain the Lieutenant. Carmen asks if Don José is going to join them; he says he has no choice – a somewhat unromantic response. Carmen says that he will enjoy the wandering life, where there is no law, but freedom.
Act 3
A wild spot in the mountains
The evocative entr’acte, the harp first accompanying the flute, which is then joined by other woodwind, leads us into the wild mountains, to the hide-out of the smugglers led by El Dancaïro.16 They know they have to be very careful. José, who is now among them, thinks of his mother, who believes that he is still a decent soldier. (We hear a few bars of the melody sung earlier by Micaëla.) Carmen, who has had enough of José, says he should return to Mum. (We hear the fate theme on the cellos and basses, and some ugly chords led by the trombones as she refers to separation and the possibility that she is predestined by fate to be killed by him.)
Frasquita and Mercédès cut cards and wonder about their future. They chatter about fortune, love, being a rich widow: Parlez. Carmen takes her turn. We hear the ominous fate theme. The card she draws predicts death for her and José. There is no changing what the cards predict; for her it is to be death.
El Dancaïro and El Remendado tell José to guard the goods while they go through the valley and deal with three customs men. The women will seduce them while the smugglers get through: Quant au douanier, c’est notre affaire.
Micaëla comes in search of José, nervous but pretending to herself that she is not fearful about the smugglers, nor, for that matter, about Carmen: Je dis que rien ne m’épouvante, a glorious aria in which she reaches top B. She prays for strength.
Escamillo has also come, in search of Carmen: he knows that affairs for Carmen last no more than six months, and the one with Don José will now be over. Escamillo and Don José fight. Carmen returns and intervenes to save Escamillo, who José is about to kill when his knife snaps. Escamillo invites them all to the bullfight, and leaves. Don José tries to attack him but is restrained by the smugglers.
Micaëla is brought in. She pleads with José that his mother weeps for him. Carmen tells him he had better go to her. But, for José, who is furious, their two destinies are inextricably entwined. He is not leaving her. Only when Micaëla tells him his mother is dying and wants to forgive him before she dies, does José agrees to go with Micaëla. Ominously, to the sound of the fate theme, he warns Carmen that they will meet again. The toreador is heard singing. As Carmen tries to follow Escamillo, José bars her way.
Act 4
A square in Seville
The entr’acte, ‘like some hyper-realistic fandango’, leads us to the festival in Seville, with the music we heard in the Prelude to the opera. Outside the bullring, Lieutenant Zuniga is buying some oranges. The toreador’s parade takes place. At the end of this is Escamillo, with Carmen on his arm: Si tu m’aimes Carmen … Ah je t’aime, Escamillo.
Frasquita and Mercédès warn Carmen that José is in town, but Carmen is not afraid.
The crowd goes into the arena. Carmen and Don José are left confronting each other. Desperately, he begs her to start a new life with him. She says it is impossible; it is all over between them: Non, je ne t’aime plus. He will do anything for her, he says; he will stay a bandit. Carmen says she was born free and will stay free.
The sound of the bullfight can be heard in the background. Don José bars her way to the arena. Don José says he has given everything up for her. All she, infamous woman, can do is lie in Escamillo’s arms and laugh at him. ‘Carmen, you will come with me,’ he shrieks, and tries to pull her away; ‘No, no never’: Pour la dernière fois, démon, veux-tu me suivre? Non, Non! She flings back at him a ring he once gave her. Eh bien! Damnée!17 He stabs her. As the crowd emerges, he falls on her body. ‘You can arrest me,’ he declares. ‘I have killed her, Carmen who I adored’: Vous pouvez m’arrêter; c’est moi qui l’ai tuée! Ah! Carmen! Ma Carmen adorée!
1 Henri Meilhac (1831–1897) and Ludovic Halévy (1834–1908) were librettists of several Offenbach operettas, including La Vie parisienne and La belle Hélène. One of Bizet’s teachers was Ludovic’s uncle, the celebrated Fromental Halévy, the extremely rich composer of the highly successful grand opera La Juive, which appeared in the mid-1830s. In 1869, Bizet married Fromenthal Halévy’s daughter, Geneviève.
2 Beecham, renowned as a humorist, may have deliberately chosen the wrong word. Dictionaries define a harridan as a haggard old woman, an old jade, which nobody would dream of portraying Carmen as. But his point is well made.
3 The habanera is a dance developed in Cuba. Its rhythm is similar to the tango. Bizet based his on what he thought was a folk tune, but in fact it was by a contemporary (but obscure) composer.
4 The seguidilla is a dance in quick triple time, accompanied by guitar and castanets. It is from southern Spain, especially Andalusia.
5 If the opera had music throughout, the proper location for operas in French was the Opéra, with Italian ones being at the Théâtre-Italien. The rules were gradually being relaxed and Roméo et Juliette, which was performed at the Opéra-Comique, is actually composed right through.
6 Verdi had taken the female voice up to the high soprano. But ‘operatic lust belonged primarily to the lower register.’ So, where sexual experience was implied in younger women, as with Carmen, or Saint-Saëns’s Dalila, the sensual, dark, lower tones of the mezzo or contralto were called for. And the higher notes, e.g. Carmen’s B at the end of her Seguidilla, were used for attack. The contraltos got fed up that they were always allotted the roles of the unpleasant characters.
7 Nothing in Carmen is found shocking today, other than the smoking.
8 Ernest Guiraud (1837–1892) was born in New Orleans. Like Bizet, he won the Prix de Rome. Indeed his father was the Prix de Rome winner who beat Berlioz in the contest. In later life, Bizet’s friend was an also-ran: laid-back, absent-minded and ineffectual. His fame rests on the fact that he rescued Bizet during a fight with a gondolier. Six years later, Guiraud completed the orchestration of Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann after its composer’s death. He taught a somewhat bemused Debussy. He also arranged one of the L’Arlésienne Suites.
9 Purists inevitably experience, but for some reason choose to ignore, a difficulty with roles written for castrati.
10 The insubordinate aspects of The Marriage of Figaro did not represent any threat to an Emperor who actually wanted to shake up his Counts and Countesses. Contemporary subjects as in Verdi’s La Traviata were never actually performed in modern dress until the 20th century.
11 In Mérimée’s book, the cigarette girls work virtually naked because of the heat, adding significance to José’s experience when he is sent into the factory. When the Angelus sounds, the girls come down to the river to bathe, giving much pleasure to the young men who congregate there at 6pm.
12 The orchestra tells us, with a quite quick sounding of the ‘fate’ theme, that Don José has not put her out of his mind.
13 She reaches top B, above the G and A which are generally top of the normal contralto and mezzo-soprano ranges respectively. In the Gypsy Song in the next act, she goes up to G sharp. And when she rejects Don José in the last act, she reaches bottom A. Frasquita and Mercédès, being sopranos, can reach top C at the end of Act 2, and also before they go off to deal with the customs men.
14 Sir Thomas Beecham is often believed to have said of one candidate for the role of Escamillo, ‘he thinks he’s the bull instead of the toreador.’ The remark is however more properly attributed to the distinguished American critic Irving Kolodin when describing Alexander Sved in the role of Escamillo.
15 He reaches top B flat.
16 The third act has been beset with problems caused by animals. At a Covent Garden production conducted by Beecham, a horse was brought in to join the smugglers and add colour. Unfortunately, it turned its back on the audience and ‘performed the ultimate indiscretion.’ Everything came to a stop. Sir Thomas commented loudly, ‘A critic, by God.’ This was perhaps unexceptional, as a donkey has been known similarly to star in Act 1.
17 A cat once got onto the stage at this point. Being attracted to the singer, it rubbed itself against Don José just as he was singing ‘Eh bien, damnée’.