A ‘rare creation’: Carmen at 150

‘A savage; half gypsy, half Andalusian; sensual, mocking, shameless; believing neither in God nor in the Devil... she is the veritable prostitute of the gutter and the crossroads’. These words from journalist and opera librettist Achille de Lauzières in La Patrie are just one of many similar comments made by critics attending the world premiere of Georges Bizet’s Carmen at the Opéra-Comique in Paris 150 years ago. The majority of the audience in attendance on 3 March 1875 were offended and indeed shocked by this groundbreaking operatic spectacle with its new socially confrontational and daringly lifelike portrayals of arousal, jealousy, and violence – although maybe, unconsciously, they were also frightened. Many of them were appalled that a shy young army corporal should become besotted with a fearless seductive gypsy and destroy his life in the process – deserting the army to follow her after she has had a change of heart and joining her entourage of outlaws and smugglers in the delusion that he can win her back.

The audience and the critics might also have felt threatened by Bizet’s evocation of the conflict between the two different emotional worlds and social attitudes of the protagonists – the romantic but traditionally bourgeois-conscious Don José, who expects as his right that after Carmen has seduced him and he has fallen in love with her, she must be faithful to him, and the earthy, also romantic but indigenously pagan Carmen, who as a gypsy obeys her people’s two laws: freedom and fate. Perhaps an inherent subconscious apprehension thus provoked composer and musicologist Jean-Pierre-Oscar Commetant to write in Le Siècle: ‘It is not that there are no so-called themes in Monsieur Bizet’s score; unfortunately, they lack novelty and distinction. Monsieur Bizet, who has nothing more to learn than can be taught, unhappily needs to find out things that cannot be studied. His essence, rather staled by the school of dissonance and research, needs to regain its musical virginity’.

Musical virginity – for this subject? Well, there were a small number of people at the premiere who, far from being fazed by the new experience, were instead inspired. In Le National, poet and author Théodore de Banville wrote: ‘Instead of those pretty sky-blue and pale-pink puppets who were the joy of our fathers, Bizet (sic.) has tried to show real men and real women, dazzled, tortured by passion... whose torment, jealousy... and (sic.) mad infatuation are interpreted to us by the orchestra turned creator and poet... To bring about such a coup d’état, M. Bizet... found the only associates who could have the idea, the courage and the audacity to give him enough range by throwing out the window all the old rubbish and old ghosts of the Opéra-Comique.’ Tragically, Bizet never lived to witness the prophetic power of de Banville’s insights; Carmen’s worldwide exoneration and acclaim developed only shortly after his death in June 1875. ‘Real men and real women’ and ‘the orchestra turned creator and poet’ are especially vital comments. Add to that how – even though the composer had not originally intended to do so – Bizet and his librettists Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy conjured up a considerably greater complexity in Carmen herself and a substantially different character in Don José than had been the case in Prosper Merimée’s novella, and it is hardly surprising that Tchaikovsky was profoundly impressed when he attended a performance in 1876. Writing to his benefactress Nadezhda von Meck, he said: ‘Carmen is a masterpiece in every sense of the word... one of those rare creations which expresses the efforts of a whole musical epoch’.

Sir Mark Elder: Bizet's music 'is a stroke of such genius, because it forces Don José to confront his responsibilities while its rigid four in a bar squareness clashes with the freedom and flexibility of Carmen’s dance' ©2024 Camilla Greenwell

One and a half centuries have passed since then – and we are no longer in an epoch when a critic like Commetant could conceivably write that ‘the pathological condition of this unfortunate woman… is more likely to inspire the solicitude of physicians than to interest the decent spectators who come to the Opéra-Comique accompanied by their wives and daughters’. But the issues we are presented with in Carmen do not change over time: the opera’s profound portrayal of attitudes to love, fidelity, and possessiveness is as challenging for an audience in 2025 as it was in 1875, and the cast, stage director and conductor in the Royal Opera House’s upcoming run of performances (9 April – 3 July) will still be invoking dangerous realities. Above all, it is the depth and intensity with which Bizet’s music paints these realities that give the work its lasting power, as the Sir Mark Elder, conductor of the Covent Garden production, explains: ‘Carmen’s greatness lies in its directness of characterisation and the clarity and openness with which Bizet presents human situations and passions that we all immediately recognise. He seizes his audience’s fascination with the characters in the graphic way that he etches their different emotional temperatures. Carmen’s freedom of spirit as a seductive woman is instantly captured by the orchestra and straight away strikes us because her music is completely unlike anything we have heard before.

‘The music of the Act One duet with Micaëla and Don José has a more traditional operatic language – beautiful and lyrical, considered and secure, the music of Don José’s simple and unadventurous village background. But that comes minutes after we have been confronted with this extraordinary personality of Carmen, and the colours and flavours in her music are worlds apart: unpredictable and capricious, daring and dangerous. Her music reveals to us why everybody is changed by her – not just Don José but also the soldiers, who are all on their mettle because none of them knows what she might do next. And then we have such vivid contrasts between the music of Don José and that of Escamillo. At first Don José’s shyness and sensitivity appeals to Carmen but she also senses his inner passions, all revealed so tellingly in his music. Then later on she is drawn as much to Escamillo’s celebrity image as she is to his immense self-confidence and very strong sexual appeal, and all this is so strongly expressed in the colours of the music that Bizet gives him.’

Bizet’s music also subtly tells us that Carmen is a labyrinthine person – considerably more so than Don José is capable of understanding. ‘One might say that she is a searching, even yearning spirit; looking for the right partner, for someone to answer her and live up to her strength,’ Sir Mark explains. ‘I believe she has the capacity for a fulfilling relationship, but the man would have to be very strong, both for himself and in the way that he handles her: and that means managing a complex person. She is a passionate woman, but she is frustrated with the men she meets. She is drawn to them, and she has always known that they are very strongly drawn to her, but no-one so far has been able to give her what she seeks.

‘Had Don José not been there and had she not aroused his passion, Escamillo would probably have brought her the fulfilment she searches for. He is the kind of man who would know how to take her and keep her strong. But it has been her fate to notice this young, inexperienced and handsome army corporal, who is different from most men: he doesn’t throw himself at her, and she is intrigued. “Who is this?” she thinks to herself. “What is he trying to say to me? Does he know who I am? Let’s see what he is made of.” And of course, very quickly he becomes infatuated with her – but also he is flattered that someone so different from the girls back home would be interested in him; he is surprised at his appeal. This is all in the music of Carmen’s Seguidilla – when she starts to lay out her plan and sings her feline, sensuous melody. And Don José realises what an artist she is – how she can play, and dance, and sing: and how she is an incredible female energy, so different from anyone he has ever come across. Although he is so aroused that this woman seems to be drawn to him, at first, he tries to dispel her power over him because he knows that if he gives in to it, it will be very dangerous for him. That is not an unusual human situation, and we don’t have to be in Spain to find it.’

Aigul Akhmetshina: ‘She opened up for Don José because he didn’t look at her as an object, like everyone else around her did.©2024 Camilla Greenwell

Passion without understanding – at least on Don José’s side – is the tragedy of Bizet’s great opera. Carmen does feel love for Don José – she is charmed and fascinated by this naïve but attractive and unusual young soldier, and she is not simply, as is sometimes claimed, using him to escape going to prison for assaulting one of her colleagues in the cigarette factory. But although Don José is certainly aware that his feelings for her are dangerous, when he does give way to them, he dreams of a life that is aeons away from reality; he has no insight at all into Carmen’s emotional make-up and no awareness whatsoever of the world of her background. Conversely, Carmen is sometimes accused of manipulation because, unlike Don José, she is world-wise enough to know that he is going to be hurt by her one day. That assumption surely misunderstands the depth of Bizet’s creation. One of the many substantial differences between the opera of Georges Bizet and the novella of Prosper Merimée that inspired it is the fundamentally altered characterisations of both Carmen and Don José who are rougher and in some ways coarser in the original story. Bizet’s music paints a far more subtle picture - as indeed does his librettists’ scenario – in which Carmen herself, as well as Don José, becomes a tragic figure because, whether or not the audience like it, she does love Don José at the outset.

Aigul Akhmetshina, who reprises the role in the Covent Garden production this spring, explains her interpretation of Carmen’s reasoning: ‘She opened up for Don José because he didn’t look at her as an object, like everyone else around her did. So, it was an unexpected surprise for her. When she took on Don José, although she knew it was a big danger, here was a hope that with him things might be different. But in the end, it’s a story of people who don’t hear each other and don’t listen to each other, and because of the fear of being alone, they end up with the wrong person.’

The crucial moment when this discovery is made is one of opera’s most ingenious and original coup de théâtres. Sir Mark elucidates: ‘Imagine the impact on the audience the very first time they heard the off-stage trumpets calling Don José back to the barracks while Carmen is performing her seductive dance. To begin with, the public would hardly have heard them, but suddenly they became aware that there was some other music going on in the distance – and they realised that it was military. It is a stroke of such genius, because it forces Don José to confront his responsibilities while its rigid four in a bar squareness clashes with the freedom and flexibility of Carmen’s dance as she bends and arches – and she loses her temper because he decides to subjugate himself to the laws of the military: the complete opposite to her law of freedom. The die of the entire tragedy is so brilliantly cast by Bizet in the most concise and inspired way.’

However, to realise this tragedy in its fullest embodiment poses exigencies that have always been exceptionally formidable to fulfil. ‘All over the world, casting the role of Carmen is so challenging’, Sir Mark continues. ‘There is a direct parallel here with the casting challenge for Don Giovanni. In both cases the audience has to be convinced by an extraordinary sexual energy in the performer’s stage persona so that they can believe in the events of the drama – and that is very demanding indeed. It is not sufficient just to sing the role of Carmen beautifully and indeed to look beautiful: does the artist have the ability to powerfully suggest the free spirit? She has to know and understand that kind of woman who is so self-confident and yet so attractive, so alluring and yet so demonic. She has to convey the danger of intimacy with her, because men never know where she is going to go next and how she is going to treat them. And of course, she has to be able to dance.’

And there is another daunting challenge for all the artists bringing to life the danger that Sir Mark defines: ‘One of the major hurdles in performing this great opera is that it was conceived for and originally performed in a small theatre, the Opéra-Comique, with a small orchestra and the audience at very close proximity to the performers, intimately so – and from only shortly after its first production right up today it has been seen and heard in the large opera houses of the world. It is crucial to understand that Bizet was aiming to create the atmosphere of a play with music, with voices and an orchestra that were not of Wagnerian proportions. So much of the music is written with delicate textures, even some of the loud and intensely dramatic passages, and into that world the cast have to speak with their voices – and not shout. It really is extremely difficult to find the right style and scale for performing Carmen in the full-scale very large opera houses. Although Covent Garden is a sizeable theatre, it does have a good ambience for it because it has a dry acoustic with a fast and short reverberation decay, but some of the expansive auditoriums in Europe and America present substantial difficulties, most especially when it comes to fulfilling the frailty of Bizet’s pianissimos. Even when the music explodes, not only dramatically but also in conjuring up the harsh Spanish sun, the textures are always lucid and transparent – an innate element of the emotional directness in Bizet’s writing.’

The directness and the inspiration that, 150 years after Carmen’s infamous launch, to this day presents one of the most lastingly powerful of all operatic challenges – as much for the audience as for the performers.