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February 11 - March 25, 2017
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animal-like temptress. An example of this
comes in the opera’s famed Act Three, in
which Carmen, reading cards, foresees
death for herself and for José:
If in the book of fate
your happiness is written,
then deal and have no fear,
for every card you turn,
to look into your future,
will show good fortune there.
But if you are to die,
the terrifying sentence
is written there on high [...]
the cards will show no mercy –
they still repeat: Death!
When Carmen comes to this
realization, beneath her the violins
start a plodding, dreadful rhythm that
they maintain for several measures.
Additionally, the orchestration of
Carmen’s premonition of death, with
its repetitive motions in the violins and
crescendo in the trombones, evokes the
Fate theme – a leitmotif in the Wagnerian
vein – that is first quoted in the overture.
The consistency of the underlying
orchestral gestures reveals a hidden turmoil
inside Carmen, something deep and
persistent. This underlying
distress
communicated
through Bizet’s music finds
no equivalent in Mérimée’s
Carmen who, in her final
confrontation with José, asserts, “You
want to kill me, I can see that, it is fated,
but you shall not make me submit.”
Mérimée’s Carmen has a tough interior
and exterior, even in dire moments. It’s
what builds her characterization as a
femme fatale, but Bizet’s interpretation
gives Carmen more complexity. This is
just one example of how Bizet leveraged
an aspect of Mérimée’s novella, the theme
of fate, and incorporated it into his opera.
While the novella expounds a steely
seductress, the opera’s heroine is more
enigmatic and three-dimensional. It was
Carmen who broke the mold and paved
the way for other psychologically layered
operatic heroines in the near future and
beyond. Massenet’s
Thaïs
(1881), the
story of a decadent Egyptian prostitute
transformed by her encounter with a
monk, comes to mind, as do the title
characters in Strauss’s
Salome
and Berg’s
Lulu
as equally complex heroines with
powerful sexual stigmas attached to each
of them.
“Corrida” (1901), one of many memorable bullfight scenes painted by Pablo Picasso.
Though on its own, Mérimée’s
historically grounded novella hasn’t
equaled the success of Bizet’s passionate
opera, it’s only because Bizet’s work is
an extraordinary piece of music drama.
Bizet transformed an uneven pre-existing
source and imbued it with an augmented
dramatic intensity and an enchanting,
evocative melodic freshness.
Carmen
has
endured as the consummate operatic
masterpiece because its drama is as
memorable as its music.
Harry Rose has been writing critically about
opera and classical music since 2012 on
his blog, Opera Teen (operateen.wordpress.
com). He is also a blogger at the
Huffington
Post
and has had his writing published
by
The Washington Post
, in addition
to receiving mentions in
The New York
Times, The Christian Science Monitor
,
and on 105.9 WQXR. He is currently a
freshman studying Italian at Georgetown
University.
MTV’s contemporary take on the story,
Carmen: A Hip Hopera
(2001),
starred Beyoncé in her film acting debut.
Gypsies in Spain in the 1930s