Return to BalletNotes Home Page

Carmen, Story Origins

(Compiled October, 1997)

Return to top of page

 

Most people today know the story of Carmen from Bizet's opera, commonly reputed as the most popular opera ever written. However, Carmen originated in a different form with French author Prosper Mérimée who heard an anecdote, when traveling in 1830 through Andalusia, Spain, recounted by the Countess Montijo. The story was of a Gypsy girl who had been killed by her jealous lover. Over the next fifteen years the story grew in his mind enlarged by impressions from his other travels in Spain, his own emotional experiences and his reading on the Gypsies and Spain. His novella Carmen was published in 1845.

Mérimée's story concerns a Spanish soldier, Jose Navarro, who falls passionately in love with a Gypsy woman, Carmen, and deserts his regiment to follow a life of crime and murder for her. Because Carmen would not be faithful to him, Navarro kills her and as he awaits his execution for her murder, tells his story to the novel's narrator.

In Carmen, Merimée created one of the supreme literary incarnations of the femme fatale, who surrounds herself with an aura of mystery, magic and malevolence, with which she exerts a fatal charm on the weak and unwary. She exploits her sexuality and the mystique she has created in order to further her own ends. Merimée describes Carmen as small, slim, young, "prettier than any Gypsy" with eyes that have a sensual yet savage look. She wore clothes beautifully and, because she could not afford perfume, wore heavily scented flowers. She was always laughing, had a sense of the ridiculous, yet was able to cope with any situation. She was more than faithful to her own people, but she had to be free. She could not tolerate the possessive love of José. A lover of her freedom above all else, she could not allow one man to call himself her master for long. She faced death with rash courage and resignation of her fate, which brings to the tale a tragic dimension.

The first two chapters of the book are narrated by a semi-fictional archeologist on tour in Southern Spain. Chapter three is narrated by José Navarro, adding an urgency and intimacy to the tale. A final chapter was added in 1847. This, narrated by Mérimée himself, reads like a cover letter from the author to his publisher. It was mostly greeted with bafflement and dismay and only occasional admiration. It certainly does not add anything to the story itself but seems to attempt to justify certain aspects and to prove a greater knowledge of the Gypsies.

 

Other events of 1846, the year Mérimée published his novella.

Return to top of page

 

The Opera

It is not known why Bizet chose Carmen, "a sober laconic low life story only slightly relieved by the exotic setting of Spain," as the subject of his new opera. It was a very different type of story than his previous romantic operas, he never went to Spain, knew little of Spanish music and actually used few Spanish sources in Carmen. The management of Opéra-Comique in Paris (being a rendezvous for arranged marriages) objected to the melange of Gypsies, prostitutes, murderers and thieves. Despite having a reputation abroad for being a naughty country, France's middle class was sturdily moral. Carmen was also unacceptable at the time as the end of Franco Prussian-war brought criticism of the moral laxities of the Second Empire.

The librettists, Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy (Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus, Massenet's Manon and Offenbach's La Belle Helene) did not care greatly for the project. They reformed the story to make it work as opera and to suit the taste of the day by removing the crudely realistic features. These changes were strongly resisted by Bizet.

In addition to the two main characters created by Mérimée, the opera adds Micaëla to symbolize the innocence of José's village and Escamillo to personify the male Carmen finds irresistible. José and Carmen are complete opposites. To José, Carmen has all the things he lacks: a total lack of inhibition, irresponsibility and a capacity for enjoying life. To her, José is fascinating as a gentleman, he is handsome, bears an elegant detachment, does not chase every girl, yet is obviously passionate.

Although José is the narrator in Mérimée's story, it was thought he could not function as such in opera. José comes from a proud Basque family, stalwart, good looking passionate, but inhibited by his upbringing. His demise is rushed for dramatic purposes in the opera, but in the book is slower. (As portrayed therein, José was a triple murderer; the first was when his temper flared as a boy, a murder that precipitated his entry into the army.). He wants to save Carmen, to take her to a better life. His temper flares and he has killed Carmen before he knows what he has done. Subconsciously he can never escape the morality of his family, that marriage must be for life. Rather than the weak soldier in the book, the opera's Don José becomes a man who abandons a pale sentimental love and banal occupations in order to plunge into the outlaw world of passion. He shows weakness not by following Carmen, but by being unable to follow her completely.

According to the book Carmen is an unscrupulous, fearless liar and thief; the violence of her feelings dominates. The opera seeks to present these characteristics in a positive light, more 19th century heroine than 20th century anti-heroine. It was the first time in opera that a female could flout legality and morality and remain heroine of the work. We are never given a clue as to the motivations of her actions or her feelings. We just know she demands to remain free. She never declares her love for Don José and several times mocks him for his indecision. But she is intrigued by a man for whom love is not a game, and who is deadly serious about it. Indeed it is death she finally challenges by accepting, despite all warnings, to meet Don José. Carmen knows it is worth missing the fiesta, over which she was to reign, in order to have this confrontation.

Micaëla was the invention of Halévy to 'sweeten the disgusting Carmen pill' for the disapproving management of the Opéra-Comique. She embodies sweetness, religion, legality and devotion to family and is necessary to the story to highlight Don José's life before Carmen. Escamillo is a vain empty fool whose sheer virility forces out into the open the emotional power within Don José when Carmen is unfaithful.

Bizet was met with hostility regarding his music and the morals of the opera. The orchestra declared passages unplayable. The theater director, who did not like the music, called it Indochinese music.

Producing the opera did not go smoothly either, and rehearsals were often postponed due to lack of cash. The first singer approached for role of Carmen rejected it as "scabrous". Marie Célestiné Laurence Galli-Marié (the original Mignon in opera of the same name by Ambroise Thomas) was eventually cast as Carmen. She haggled endlessly with the theater director and wrote a sarcastic letter to a friend comparing the director to a monkey. Unfortunately she mailed it to the opera house by mistake and it was read by the director. Mme. Galli-Marié did not like the way Bizet had written the Habañera, so he rewrote it 13 times before giving up in despair. Carmen was the first time an Habañera rhythm was used in an opera. The tune was borrowed from the Spanish-American composer, Yradier.

Bizet was awarded the Legion of Honor several hours before the premiere of Carmen, March 3, 1875. No one knows why it was timed thus, but a wit of the day concluded "because it won't be possible to decorate him after Carmen hits the stage."

The premiere was not successful. The audience was enthusiastic for Act 1, but by the end of Act 4 there was no applause. Most press notices were hostile and many indignant, even hysterically attacking the music or the libretto. (Several years later the same critics were lavishing praise on Carmen.) Bizet pronounced it "a definite and hopeless flop," and became ill. However he was strongly supported by fellow composers. "It's a great success. When I have the good fortune to see you, I shall tell you how happy you made me..." telegrammed Massenet. Saint-Saëns wrote "I found it [Carmen] marvelous, and I am telling you the truth."

There were many mishaps at the premiere: the tenor Paul Lhérie had trouble maintaining his pitch; the cigarette girls, unaccustomed to smoking, gasped and choked in their most important section; Galli-Marié lost her castanets and so broke a plate on stage to have something to play; and the timpanist miscounted his bars and came in with an enthusiastic crash in the middle of José and Carmen's duet.

Eventually 45 performances of Carmen were presented to diminishing audiences. During the 31st performance (June 3) Mme. Galli-Marié became extremely disturbed during the card scene and exited the stage and fainted - convinced that something terrible had happened. That night Bizet had died in Bougival.

A few months later, in Vienna, a production of Carmen launched the opera on its successful career. Tchaikovsky said "Carmen is a masterpiece...I am convinced that in ten years Carmen will be the most popular opera in the world." and Brahms saw it 21 times.

Carmen was brought to the U.S. in 1878 as presented by Colonel James Mapleson's troupe at the New York Academy of Music. Two days later a rival company put it on in Philadelphia. Both companies toured the country. The Metropolitan Opera debut was January 9, 1884.

By 1883, as Paris clamored for a revival of Carmen, it was produced in a highly sanitized version. The music was slowed down, the chorus stood around statuesquely, the tavern became a high class hotel with beautifully dressed patrons who watched a classical ballet, the fight between Don José and Escamillo became an amicable discussion and José managed to drop his dagger before killing Carmen. The production was greeted by cries of "Desecration!" and had to be restored to its original form.

The one thousandth performance of Carmen at the Opéra-Comique took place in 1904. By 1938, the anniversary of Bizet's birth, it had received 2,271 performances at the Opéra-Comique.

Return to top of page

 

World events surrounding the premiere of Carmen in 1875.

1874

1875

Return to top of page

 

Prosper Mérimée, author

Prosper Mérimée is now best remembered as an early exponent of the short story as a modern genre; as the author of a handful of memorable tales-not all of them short-whose themes are violence, passion, and death; and above all as the author of Carmen, which has tended to eclipse the other stories. Mérimée left his mark in a number of other fields, as administrator, scholar, archeologist, authority on medieval architecture, historian, and translator. This elegant, scholarly man-about-Paris never ceased to hanker after exotic milieus and primitive societies of which he had written in his Romantic youth.

Prosper Mérimée was born in Paris in 1803, the son of an academic painter whose administrative talents later earned him the post of Permanent Secretary of the École des Beaux-Arts. He grew up in an artistic, cultured and agnostic environment and was apparently never baptized. After completing his law studies he published Théâtre de Clara Gazul (1825), a group of plays that at once made him a prominent figure in the French Romantic Movement. However, shortly after this works publication he distanced himself from that movement. In 1829 appeared Chronique du règne de Charles IX, his only novel, and over the following year he wrote six of the dozen or so stories for which he is chiefly remembered. In 1830 he joined the Civil Service, and in 1834 was appointed Inspector-General of Historic Monuments, a post he held until 1860 and which involved him in extensive travels throughout France. He also traveled widely in England and Spain. During this period he wrote increasingly on architectural and historical matters, but continued to publish occasional stories. In 1843 he was admitted to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, and the following year was elected to the Académie français. After the publication of Carmen in 1846 (for which he borrowed from his 1831-33 Letters from Spain), he wrote no more fiction for twenty years. In 1854 he was appointed a Senator, and thereafter became a prominent figure at the court of Napoleon III. In the last three years of his life he turned again to fiction with three short stories, none of which was intended for publication. Mérimée died at Cannes in 1870.

Return to top of page

Back to the ballet Carmen

Return to BalletNotes Home Page