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Carmen |
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Carmen
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Carmen was extremely innovative in its drama: alternating comic or sentimental scenes found traditionally in opéra comique with stark realism. The initial controversy, even before the premiere, was about shocking aspects of the story, despite Bizet and his librettists' toning down of some elements of Mérimée's novella. The trouble with Carmen was that, while retaining the externals of the genre, such as spoken dialogue, it not only took its characters from proletarian life – a corporal, a promiscuous gypsy, a sporting idol – it dared to treat their emotions with absolute seriousness.
Carmen will always be a challenge for great singing actresses. Her availability to men (as she explains in the Habanera) is strictly on her terms. She is fatalistic and hedonistic, living entirely in the present moment. Carmen's fatalism is well illustrated in the card-playing scene, much revised by Bizet, in which she accepts the premonition of death. In Act I her reply to Zuniga when she is arrested is a translation from the Pushkin poem: "J’aime un autre et je meurs en disant que je l’aime", and anticipates phrases she will use at the end of the opera. Carmen is a woman prepared to give herself completely, aware of the magnitude in human terms of this decision but in turn she will demand the same from the one to whom she surrenders herself. Portrayed as "free, independent and mistress of all her decisions", Carmen's strength and capacity of expression, her calm acceptance of her fate, and especially of her death show her "interior security, strength of temperament, personality and beauty...".
José is ill-suited to Carmen's whims, expecting fidelity, unlike the other males in the opera, who perceive her as available to them. He dreams that he can possess and redeem her. Don José's descent and moral disintegration from simple and honourable soldier to a murderous brigand is plotted by librettists and composer "from connivance at Carmen's escape, through desertion, armed resistance to an officer and smuggling, to murder".
Carmen and José's scenes together represent the stages of their relationship. The Seguidilla in Act I is the seduction, the second in Act II is the conflict, and the last in Act IV —which the librettists by a brilliant stroke moved from the mountains (Mérimée) to outside the bullring— is the tragic resolution.
Micaëla and Escamillo, shadowy figures in the novella, are not as developed as the two protagonists; they would not be out of place in a traditional opéra comique. Micaëla corresponds to José's character and psychological environment before he met Carmen, while Escamillo represents a more typical male attitude to Carmen. Micaëla's music is developed from Gounod's lyric operas, whereas Escamillo is a musical cousin of Ourrias in Mireille. In Escamillo's 'Toreador Song' (where the singer is asked to sing 'fatuously'), Bizet knew that the song would be popular, but commented "They want their trash, and will get it".
José development can be traced by the music alone: in Act I he is the simple countryman, his music in tune with Micaëla's. His duet with Micaëla begins with his first sung words "Parle-moi de ma mère"; Micaëla's music weaves her own feelings with those of José's mother. In the G major duet José briefly recalls Carmen's motif. The Seguidille is an original compound of song, dance and duet, in which Carmen's seduction of José is initiated, developed and carried to the point of capitulation by musical means alone. Muted strings accompany Carmen’s plotting, with a hushed four-part fugue in F minor, which will return in a rollicking A major at the curtain when Carmen escapes.
The entr’acte before Act II contains the song for José later in Act II when he approaches the tavern. Carmen's castanet dance for José is barely scored – which leaves space for the bugle summoning José to barracks, harmonizing with her sensuous dance. The ‘fate’ theme on the cor anglais leads to a wide-raging solo – the ‘flower song’, where his passion for Carmen is more profound than his love for Micaëla ever was; the modulation in the last bars show his emotions have grown beyond his control. This long sequence which includes Carmen's dance, her quarrel with José, his flower song and the duet ‘La-bas, la bas dans la montagne’ – which Bizet refused to break into sections for applause and which leads straight into the finale – is a miracle of musical and dramatic development without recourse to recitative.
The second entr’acte paints the landscape of Act III with a serene arching melody on the flute over a harp accompaniment, with other instruments entering to converse with the flute. Escamillo and José's fight duet builds to a blustering climax and ends on a diminished 7th as José lunges to kill his opponent. The Act III finale intensifies everything leading up to it, with Escamillo going off to a dreamy D flat version of his Act II couplets, the discovery of Micaëla and José's agitation driving the music to the emotional climax of the opera "Dût-il m’en couter la vie". The repetition of the passage a few moments later in G (rather than G flat) is an electrifying stroke. The scene closes with the smuggler's march that opened the act, now in F. This whole section, the only involving all four protagonists, plays the musical styles of the characters against one another to maximum effect.
The entr’acte before Act IV is the most exotic, with sharp rhythms, exotic percussion, chromaticism and descending tetrachords. The short duet for Carmen and Escamillo allows them to express their feelings separately, then in unison (unanimity absent from Carmen and José's scenes). The finale opens with short exchanges between José and Carmen; his hysteria has given way to a grim and hard desperation. Bizet here anticipates the device so often used by Puccini of writing for voice and bass in octaves with the harmony in between. Songs and cries are heard offstage (in the arena), and as he stabs her the Toreador's song and the fate motive appear together. It had been conventional in opéra comique to have a joyful chorus at the end, but not off-stage, and not as an ironic counterpart to the stage action. The opera concludes with two open octaves in F#.
Last Updated: Sunday, June 14, 2009
© Copyright: Kira
