Carmen Backstage Pass

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This Dangerous Role:
Carmen, Women and Society
When Bizet’s Carmen premiered in Paris in 1875,
it shocked audiences with its plot, its music—and
especially its heroine. Carmen was performed at the Opéra-
Comique, a theater known for light, family-friendly fare. Ludovic Halévy, who
coauthored the libretto, described how director Adolphe de Leuven reacted
to the suggestion of an opera based on the novella by Prosper Mérimée.
“He actually interrupted me,” Halévy recalled, “‘Mérimée’s Carmen ! Isn’t
she killed by her lover? And these bandits, gypsies, and girls working in a
cigar factory! At the Opéra-Comique! You’ll frighten our audience away.’”
(Halévy) The character Carmen is brazen, opinionated and manipulative.
She is a gypsy and an independent woman earning her own living. Her
willingness to use her sensuality to get what she wanted scandalized the
Opéra-Comique’s middle class patrons.
In Latin, the word carmen means song, verse or enchantment. It’s a fitting
name for Bizet’s heroine, who seems to cast a spell over men. After their
first encounter, Don José remarks, “If there really are witches/she’s certainly
one.” One of the charges frequently leveled against gypsies was that they
dabbled in the dark arts of sorcery and magic. Gypsies were outsiders
in Spain, living on the fringes of mainstream society; throughout Europe,
discriminatory laws were passed against them for centuries. They were
stereotyped as a people ruled by instinct, less civilized than lighter-skinned
Europeans. In a similar vein, women in the 19th century were described as
less rational than men, susceptible to being overcome by their emotions.
As a woman and a gypsy, then, Carmen was already established as a
temptress, not to be trusted.
It is significant that Carmen works in the cigarette factory. She is unmarried
and independent, earning her own income. In Bizet’s time, a woman’s
proper place was thought to be in the home. A woman went from her
father’s home to her husband’s when she married. An independent woman
was suspect. Carmen openly relishes her freedom: In Act II she sings, “The
open sky, the wandering life,/the whole wide world your domain;/for
law your own free will,/and above all, that intoxicating thing:/Freedom!
Freedom!” The men of Carmen, by contrast, speak to the women in terms of
coercion and possession, whether it is the soldiers insisting to Micaëla “You’ll
stay!” as she protests, “Indeed, I won’t!” or Don José agonizing over Carmen:
“For you had only to appear,/only to throw a glance my way,/to take
possession of my whole being,/O my Carmen,/and I was your chattel! I shall
compel you/to bow to the destiny/that links your fate with mine!” Carmen
is unwilling to sacrifice her freedom for love; Don José is willing to murder his
beloved, rather than allow her to assert her independence.
When he pitched the idea for Carmen to the skeptical director of the
Opéra-Comique, librettist Halévy sang the praises of a character he and
Meilhac had added to Mérimée’s story: one “perfectly in keeping with the
style of the opéra-comique…a young girl of great chastity and innocence.”
(Halévy ) He was alluding, of course, to Micaëla, Carmen’s foil and Don
José’s intended. Carmen’s use of her sensuality to get what she needs is
contrasted to Micaëla’s sweetness and submission. Demure and proper,
Micaëla represents the Victorian ideal of womanhood—home, family
By Maia Morgan
Photo: TBD
Photo: Lynn Lane/Houston Grand Opera