Who Composed Carmen

[Billi Plancarte]

Theopera is written in the genre of opra comique with musical numbers separated by dialogue. It is set in southern Spain and tells the story of the downfall of Don Jos, a nave soldier who is seduced by the wiles of the fiery gypsy Carmen. Jos abandons his childhood sweetheart and deserts from his military duties, yet loses Carmen's love to the glamorous torero Escamillo, after which Jos kills her in a jealous rage. The depictions of proletarian life, immorality, and lawlessness, and the tragic death of the main character on stage, broke new ground in French opera and were highly controversial.

After the premiere, most reviews were critical, and the French public was generally indifferent. Carmen initially gained its reputation through a series of productions outside France, and was not revived in Paris until 1883. Thereafter, it rapidly acquired popularity at home and abroad. Later commentators have asserted that Carmen forms the bridge between the tradition of opra comique and the realism or verismo that characterised late 19th-century Italian opera.

The music of Carmen has since been widely acclaimed for brilliance of melody, harmony, atmosphere, and orchestration, and for the skill with which the emotions and suffering of the characters are represented. At his death Bizet was still in the midst of revising his score and because of other later changes (notably the introduction of recitatives composed by Ernest Guiraud in place of the original dialogue) there is still no definitive edition of the opera. The opera has been recorded many times since the first acoustical recording in 1908, and the story has been the subject of many screen and stage adaptations.

The orchestration consists of two flutes (doubling piccolo), two oboes (the second doubling cor anglais), two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, harp, and strings. The percussion section consists of timpani, side drum, triangle, tambourine, cymbals, castanets, and bass drum.[17] The orchestral complement for the premiere run was 62 or 57 musicians in total (depending on whether the pit trumpet and trombone players doubled off-stage music).[18]

A group of soldiers relax in the square, waiting for the changing of the guard and commenting on the passers-by ("Sur la place, chacun passe"). Micala appears, seeking Jos. Morals tells her that "Jos is not yet on duty" and invites her to wait with them. She declines, saying she will return later. Jos arrives with the new guard, which is greeted and imitated by a crowd of urchins ("Avec la garde montante").

As the factory bell rings, the cigarette girls emerge and exchange banter with young men in the crowd ("La cloche a sonn"). Carmen enters and sings her provocative habanera on the untameable nature of love ("L'amour est un oiseau rebelle"). The men plead with her to choose a lover, and after some teasing she throws a flower to Don Jos, who thus far has been ignoring her but is now annoyed by her insolence.

Two months have passed. Carmen and her friends Frasquita and Mercds are entertaining Zuniga and other officers ("Les tringles des sistres tintaient") in Pastia's inn. Carmen is delighted to learn of Jos's release from two months' detention. Outside, a chorus and procession announces the arrival of the toreador Escamillo ("Vivat, vivat le Torro"). Invited inside, he introduces himself with the "Toreador Song" ("Votre toast, je peux vous le rendre") and sets his sights on Carmen, who brushes him aside. Lillas Pastia hustles the crowds and the soldiers away.

When only Carmen, Frasquita and Mercds remain, smugglers Dancare and Remendado arrive and reveal their plans to dispose of some recently acquired contraband ("Nous avons en tte une affaire"). Frasquita and Mercds are keen to help them, but Carmen refuses, since she wishes to wait for Jos. After the smugglers leave, Jos arrives. Carmen treats him to a private exotic dance ("Je vais danser en votre honneur ... La la la"), but her song is joined by a distant bugle call from the barracks. When Jos says he must return to duty, she mocks him, and he answers by showing her the flower that she threw to him in the square ("La fleur que tu m'avais jete"). Unconvinced, Carmen demands he show his love by leaving with her. Jos refuses to desert, but as he prepares to depart, Zuniga enters looking for Carmen. He and Jos fight. Carmen summons her gypsy comrades, who restrain Zuniga. Having attacked a superior officer, Jos now has no choice but to join Carmen and the smugglers ("Suis-nous travers la campagne").

Carmen and Jos enter with the smugglers and their booty ("coute, coute, compagnon"); Carmen has now become bored with Jos and tells him scornfully that he should go back to his mother. Frasquita and Mercds amuse themselves by reading their fortunes from the cards; Carmen joins them and finds that the cards are foretelling her death, and Jos's. The smugglers depart to transport their goods while the women distract the local customs officers. Jos is left behind on guard duty.

Micala enters with a guide, seeking Jos and determined to rescue him from Carmen ("Je dis que rien ne m'pouvante"). On hearing a gunshot she hides in fear; it is Jos, who has fired at an intruder who proves to be Escamillo. Jos's pleasure at meeting the bullfighter turns to anger when Escamillo declares his infatuation with Carmen. The pair fight ("Je suis Escamillo, torro de Grenade"), but are interrupted by the returning smugglers and girls ("Hol, hol Jos"). As Escamillo leaves he invites everyone to his next bullfight in Seville. Micala is discovered; at first, Jos will not leave with her despite Carmen's mockery, but he agrees to go when told that his mother is dying. He departs, vowing he will return. Escamillo is heard in the distance, singing the toreador's song.

Zuniga, Frasquita and Mercds are among the crowd awaiting the arrival of the bullfighters ("Les voici! Voici la quadrille!"). Escamillo enters with Carmen, and they express their mutual love ("Si tu m'aimes, Carmen"). As Escamillo goes into the arena, Frasquita and Mercds warn Carmen that Jos is nearby, but Carmen is unafraid and willing to speak to him. Alone, she is confronted by the desperate Jos ("C'est toi!", "C'est moi!"). While he pleads vainly for her to return to him, cheers are heard from the arena. As Jos makes his last entreaty, Carmen contemptuously throws down the ring he gave her and attempts to enter the arena. He then stabs her, and as Escamillo is acclaimed by the crowds, Carmen dies. Jos kneels and sings "Ah! Carmen! ma Carmen adore!"; as the crowd exits the arena, Jos confesses to killing Carmen.

With rehearsals due to begin in October 1873, Bizet began composing in or around January of that year, and by the summer had completed the music for the first act and perhaps sketched more. At that point, according to Bizet's biographer Winton Dean, "some hitch at the Opra-Comique intervened", and the project was suspended for a while.[24] One reason for the delay may have been the difficulties in finding a singer for the title role.[25] Another was a split that developed between the joint directors of the theatre, Camille du Locle and Adolphe de Leuven, over the advisability of staging the work. De Leuven had vociferously opposed the entire notion of presenting so risqu a story in what he considered a family theatre and was sure audiences would be frightened away. He was assured by Halvy that the story would be toned down, that Carmen's character would be softened, and offset by Micala, described by Halvy as "a very innocent, very chaste young girl". Furthermore, the gypsies would be presented as comic characters, and Carmen's death would be overshadowed at the end by "triumphal processions, ballets and joyous fanfares". De Leuven reluctantly agreed, but his continuing hostility towards the project led to his resignation from the theatre early in 1874.[26]

Dean considers that Jos is the central figure of the opera: "It is his fate rather than Carmen's that interests us."[33] The music characterises his gradual decline, act by act, from honest soldier to deserter, vagabond and finally murderer.[25] In act 1 he is a simple countryman aligned musically with Micala; in act 2 he evinces a greater toughness, the result of his experiences as a prisoner, but it is clear that by the end of the act his infatuation with Carmen has driven his emotions beyond control. Dean describes him in act 3 as a trapped animal who refuses to leave his cage even when the door is opened for him, ravaged by a mix of conscience, jealousy and despair. In the final act his music assumes a grimness and purposefulness that reflects his new fatalism: "He will make one more appeal; if Carmen refuses, he knows what to do."[33]

Carmen herself, says Dean, is a new type of operatic heroine representing a new kind of love, not the innocent kind associated with the "spotless soprano" school, but something altogether more vital and dangerous. Her capriciousness, fearlessness and love of freedom are all musically represented: "She is redeemed from any suspicion of vulgarity by her qualities of courage and fatalism so vividly realised in the music".[25][34] Curtiss suggests that Carmen's character, spiritually and musically, may be a realisation of the composer's own unconscious longing for a freedom denied to him by his stifling marriage.[35] Harold C. Schonberg likens Carmen to "a female Don Giovanni. She would rather die than be false to herself."[36] The dramatic personality of the character, and the range of moods she is required to express, call for exceptional acting and singing talents. This has deterred some of opera's most distinguished exponents; Maria Callas, though she recorded the part, never performed it on stage.[37] The musicologist Hugh Macdonald observes that "French opera never produced another femme as fatale as Carmen", though she may have influenced some of Massenet's heroines. Macdonald suggests that outside the French repertoire, Richard Strauss's Salome and Alban Berg's Lulu "may be seen as distant degenerate descendants of Bizet's temptress".[13]

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