He’d never know that his scandalous opera about an irrepressible young Spanish woman would go on to become one of the best known and best loved pieces of music of all time.Ĭarmen is on at the Royal Opera House until 16 March and live in cinemas on Tuesday 6 March. One critic noted that the audience in Paris was “shocked by the drastic realism of the action”.īizet died just three months later, at the age of just 36. That makes it even sadder, therefore, that the opera wasn’t a success when it was first performed in 1875. He wrote in a letter to a friend that he had “absolute certainty of having found my path”. The composer himself had a sense that he’d written something greater than all his other works. But don’t take our word for it – here’s Anna Netrebko in action: Carmen est un opéra-comique en quatre actes de Georges Bizet, sur un livret dHenri Meilhac et Ludovic Halévy. Carmen es una pera dramtica en cuatro actos con msica de Georges Bizet y libreto en francs de Ludovic Halvy y Henri Meilhac, basado en la novela Carmen de Prosper Mrime, publicada por vez primera en 1845, 2 la cual a su vez posiblemente. Even when she tries to get his life back on track by going to fetch him home from the smugglers’ camp he’s living in with Carmen.īut she brings a beautiful pathos to the opera. Carmn de Manu Marn representado por Mara Serrano en agosto de 2012 en Mainz, Alemania.
So Don José, of course, barely notices her. She’s quieter and altogether less Carmen than Carmen. She’s a sweet village girl who’s in love with Don José herself. There’s one character we haven’t mentioned yet: Micaëla. She may die at the end of the opera, but she lives on way beyond her few hours on stage to become part of our cultural landscape. Not only that, Bizet’s opera was actually based on a story by another Frenchman – Prosper Mérimée.īut wherever she came from, Carmen has become one of history’s most iconic opera characters. It’s ironic, then, that this quintessential Spanish woman… was created by a Frenchman. She’s lovestruck and a femme fatale at the same time. She’s hedonistic, impetuous, hot-tempered and cold-hearted. ROH/Bill Cooper Carmen herselfĬarmen, as created by Bizet, has become the stereotypical Spanish woman of the 19th century in the popular imagination. In a fit of jealousy, Don José follows Carmen to the amphitheatre where the bullfighters are about to perform – and stabs her. The pair become lovers and Don José ends up running away from the army to be with Carmen.īut two months later, Carmen has tired of Don José and has turned her attention to the bullfighter Escamillo. When she is arrested for attacking another woman with a knife, she seduces Don José to escape. Local young men surround then and start to flirt – but Carmen explains her heart can’t be tied down with the unforgettable habanera, which begins with the words ‘Love is a rebellious bird that none can tame’. The opera opens as Carmen and her fellow cigarette-factory workers stream out at the end of a day.
Opera doesn’t come much more dramatic than Carmen :
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