Carmen

Spanish tragedy
Bizet
Carmen is unforgettable, but for opera amnesiacs it is the one with the tor-ee-a-dor song the
gypsy Carmen and the simple soldier who stabs her to death.
CAST  
Carmen, a gypsy girl Mezzo
Don José, a corporal Tenor
Escamillo, a toreador Bass/baritone
Micaëla, adopted daughter of Don José’s mother Soprano
Zuniga, Don José’s platoon commander Bass
Moralès, another corporal Baritone
Dancaïro, leading smuggler Tenor/baritone
Remendado, rank and file smuggler Tenor
Frasquita, a gypsy girl Soprano
Mercédès, another Soprano
Lillas Pastia, café owner; Andrès, an officer; gypsies, soldiers, guides,  
street sellers, etc.
   
3 acts: running time 2 hrs 40 mins

STORY

Act I  A square in Seville

We are in Seville in the early 1800s outside W. D. and H. O. Wills wholly-owned Spanish
subsidiary with guardroom opposite. Morales plus some squaddies observe the pavement
traffic. Micaela sweet seventeen enters and asks: is Don José around? Not in our mob they say:
the next shift is due any minute. Why not stay and chat? Not on your Nellie says she and runs.
Some dead-end kids play soldiers. The guard changes: the old lot tell Don José that a nice-
looking bird was enquiring for him. It must be Micaela says he. The kids go square-bashing
again. Hey corporal says a new officer Zuniga is that a tobacco factory? with female labour?
Sure is says Don José: the girls are a menace. They scare the bajesus out of me.
The tea-break hooter goes. Just look at ’em he says. Several voyeuristic layabouts plus
soldiers take up positions to observe the display of female flesh. The girls erupt: chatter: smoke.
Where’s Carmen? all cry: Carmen enters on cue: the men shout Hi Carmen give us a break we
love you. Carmen gives a habanera lecture on the nature of love. It’s volatile she says. She spots
Don José and fancies him. She chucks him a carnation. Cheeky pig says he but bajesus is she
sexy.
The hooter goes: all in. Enter Micaela: she gives Don José a letter from his mother fresh
socks a kiss and five quid. She hints his mother has a further message. Don José reads the letter

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and asks for the further message. It is Please marry Micaela. Well … er … um … says Don José
this matter needs careful consideration. I will leave you to ponder says Micaela and call for
answer later today. OK says Don José (thinks: hell, why not? But is troubled by lustful thoughts
of Carmen.)
A riot breaks out in the factory: screaming girls run out: there was a knife fight between
Manuelita and Carmen they say. José is sent in to fetch out the fighters. He comes back plus
Carmen: she was fairly carving up Manuelita says Don José. What do you say to that Carmen?
asks officer Zuniga. Tra la la answers Carmen. Insolent bitch says Zuniga. Tra la la says Carmen.
Put the bracelets on her José says Zuniga. Tra la la says Carmen. Take her off to jail says
Zuniga: all exit.
These bracelets are too tight lemme escape says Carmen. I fancy you Don José: you fancy
me: let me free and you can have sex with me. She sings a big sexy number inviting Don José
to meet her that night at Lillas Pastia’s place. Don José is knocked all of a heap: he weakens: he
agrees. He loosens the bracelets. Zuniga with a warrant plus an escort arrives: the girls sneak
out of the factory to watch: the escort forms up: Carmen slips the bracelets. Don José does a
dummy pratfall. Carmen ducks out. Tumult. Confusion: derision from the girls: curtain.

Act II  Lillas Pastia’s café

The gypsy girls Carmen Frasquita and Mercedes dance a sexy Spanish number for Zuniga and
other officers. Tra la la for a wild free gippo life they sing. Time gentlemen please says Lillas
Pastia: kindly get moving. The local pigs are hard on me I can’t think why. I’ll tell you why says
Zuniga your place is known as the HQ for smuggling crack. Why don’t you come on with us to
a nightclub girls? Pastia signals negative. The girls say no. Come on Carmen you’ve got it in for
me because I nicked you says Zuniga. Forget it. Incidentally that loon Don José your fancy man
was sent down for aiding and abetting your escape. Is he still inside? asks Carmen. Out tonight
says Zuniga.
A chorus of Escamillo’s groupies breaks out offstage. Zuniga invites them inside. Escamillo
sings pop song No. 1 in the Sevillian charts concerning the irresistible sexual power of men who
kill bulls (e.g. himself). The fans go crazy. Pastia does his nut but Escamillo lingers. Hey sexy
he says to Carmen doing anything tonight? Tonight I’m fixed up she says maybe some other
time. All exit. Zuniga is still sexually hopeful. He tells Carmen he will call back later. Thank
God says Pastia: at last.
Enter the smugglers Dancairo and Remendado. There’s a big lot of the stuff in today from
our man in Ponders End they say. We are moving it tonight. Are you girls game? Is it physical
labour? asks the girls. No: sexual persuasion of the boys in blue say the smugs. The job’s not
possible without the connivance of officialdom. I’ll go says Frasquita I’ll go says Mercedes. I
won’t go says Carmen. Why not? they ask. I’m in love says Carmen. Don’t be a mug they say. I
won’t go says Carmen. It’s that soldier isn’t it they say. Bet he won’t come tonight. Bet he will
says Carmen. Don José is heard offstage dead on cue. Why not get the poor sod to join us? say
the smugs: good idea says Carmen. Exit smugs enter Don José.
Where you bin? asks Carmen. In jankers says Don José released forty-five minutes ago and
I adore you. Your officer Zuniga adores me too and I danced for him says Carmen. Oh Carmen!
says Don José. OK OK I will dance for you now all on your own says she. She dances. Bugles
signal it’s time for roll call. I must get back says Don José. You’re chicken says Carmen OK get

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out. She chucks rifle ammo and gas cape etc. at him. Hey Carmen have a heart says Don José
I sniffed your flower daily in clink. I had loving thoughts pretty well incessantly. I love you
Carmen I am quite gone on you. Not true says Carmen if you were truly in love you would share
my gypsy life with me in the great outdoors. Steady on Carmen says Don José desertion is a
disgraceful act. Also illegal. OK says Carmen goodbye. I’m not ever seeing you again. Geddit?
A knock on the door interrupts these interesting exchanges. Zuniga forces his way in. Good
Lord Carmen he says are you consorting with riff-raff from the sergeants’ mess when officers are
available? Get out corporal. Shan’t says Don José. They both pull knives. Carmen interposes.
She shouts help! Smugs and gippos crowd in. They disarm Zuniga and give him the bum’s rush.
Carmen asks Don José so now are you coming with me? There’s no choice now says Don José.
Everyone sings in praise of gippo culture mountains freedom liberty etc. (No mention of wind
rain and snow nor of persecution by the law being moved on by Rural District Councils and
other gippo whinges.)

Act III Sc 1  A rocky mountain pass

The gang of smugs stagger on stage pretty well fagged out. They attempt to improve morale by
singing bold songs about brave hearts never fear etc. But then sink to the ground in a stupor of
fatigue. Dancairo and Remendado exit to make a recce. Don José says by God Carmen you treat
me like dirt. I want to be free says Carmen. At least my mother still loves me says Don José.
Then push off back to her says Carmen. You bitch says Don José.
Frasquita and Mercedes are at gippo fortune telling. The cards foretell nice things for both
girls. Carmen joins them. She gets the black two spot. This means death. Carmen is not pleased.
She tries again. Again the black two spot. Death! Carmen is really depressed. Dancairo returns.
He has spotted three boys in blue guarding the pass he says. Go and get to work on ’em girls he
says. OK says Carmen. Don José tries to interpose. Lay off you jealous sod says Dancairo. He
tells the girls that there is no danger of violence only mild sexual persuasion will be required.
A guide unexpectedly ushers Micaela onstage. She is searching for Don José: the general
situation up here is very scary she says and also I am scared of Carmen. But lo! Don José is just
offstage and bang! he discharges his rifle. Bajesus that’s enough says Micaela I’m off. Exits.
Enter Escamillo with a hole in his hat just above the brainpan. Enter Don José his knife at
ready. Who are you? he shouts. I am Escamillo, registered Granada bullfighter 243674 says he.
My dear old chap says Don José it’s terribly dangerous wandering around these parts with no
visa. I nearly shot you dead. I am here seeking a relationship with Carmen I believe she was
potty about some boring soldier but now she has gone off him says Escamillo. Bajesus says Don
José if you steal one of our gypsy girls you will have to pay the price. So you’re the poor sod
she chucked? says Escamillo OK let’s fight for her. They fight: Don José is winning. Carmen
interposes. Stop it at once she says. OK I’ll be off says Escamillo I’ll see you at a bullfight should
you ever wish to pursue the matter of a relationship. By the way I will fight you Don José at any
time to suit our mutual convenience. Carmen says Don José I’ve taken just about enough from
you. Pack it in children says Dancairo on your feet and get moving.
There’s a stowaway here says Remendado and brings out Micaela. Don José! cries she.
Micaela! cries he. Please hear your mother’s message says she. Your mother weeps and wishes
you to come home with me. Shan’t says Don José. I’m sticking with Carmen. I regret there is
a further message says Micaela. Your mother has terminal cancer. In that case I will go says

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Don José and if you think you’ve seen the last of me Carmen think again. We shall meet again
as sure as death. (Escamillo – cheerful chappie – heard offstage toreadoring his way down the
mountain path.)

Act II Sc 2  Outside a bullring: the day of a bullfight

Fans arrive for the big fight. There is intense commercial activity. Oranges wine water cigarettes
fans programmes etc. all on sale. The ritual procession preceding the death of a bull begins:
cuadrillas: torreros: chulos: banderillos: etceteros: with local dignitaries interspersed: then
the man himself – Escamillo. Carmen and Escamillo have a private moment to confirm their
deep sexual bond. Watch out Carmen! says Frasquita: Don José has been sighted in the crowd.
Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? says Carmen I will go and talk to him. All exit to witness the
death of the bull.
So it’s you says Carmen. It’s me says Don José. You don’t scare me says she. Come away with
me Carmen says Don José. No. Absolutely no says Carmen our relationship is through finished
ended caput. I adore you Carmen says he I will return to banditry I will do anything. There
is still time to save yourself and me. I know you will kill me but the answer is no no no says
Carmen. [Noises off from bullring.] Carmen attempts to get away. Don José interposes. That
punk bullfighter is fucking you now isn’t he? Eh Carmen? he says. Lemme go says Carmen.
[Offstage the fans do their nut.] This is your last chance Carmen he says come with me. No. No.
And no says Carmen. Here’s your lousy ring back: she chucks it at him. OK says Don José: he
raises his knife and stabs Carmen to the heart. [A triumphant chorus offstage.] Carmen dies.
Arrest me for murder says Don José I did it. Carmen I adore you. Curtain.

LOOK OUT FOR

Act I
MINUTES FROM THE START
0*
4: Sur la place*
10: Avec la garde montante**
15: Dans l’air, nous suivons des yeux*
23: L’amour est un oiseau rebelle***
31: Votre mère avec moi sortait**
44: Tra la la la**
48: Près des remparts***
The overture0 has the three main tunes of the opera-the Bullfight Parade Toreador and the
Death Theme – all fully formed and fighting fit. After all the jolly stuff that goes before, the
Death Theme comes in with the shock of a cold douche. It will come like that again, and again.
    The soldiers comment on life as it goes by in a laid-back chorus4 and with a remarkable
absence of four-letter words.
    The gang of dead-end kids do their send-up of parade-ground drill to a sharp little number10
introduced by the woodwind imitating a fife and drum band, and indeed the woodwind has the
whale of a time with this item both on its first and second outings.

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    The bunch of voyeurs who have come to eye the girls, the watching soldiers and the factory
girls themselves drift lazily through this scene each with their own ‘thinks’ chorus, the girls
singing a particularly dreamy, smoky number15 with the most delicious coda squeezed out from
the woodwind.
    Very Spanish, very famous, the Habanera23 (sexy sort of song from Havana, granddad of the
tango) is a marvellous piece. It tells us that Carmen is quite a girl, also offers a terrific test for
any aspiring mezzo. The chorus adds powerfully to the effect. As she finishes the cheering fans
crowd around her. She makes her first deadly approach to Don José and suddenly we are struck
with the menace of the Death Theme.
    The Micaela/Don José duet comes to life when she coyly hints she has a special message:
then she goes first in a set-piece31 duet and delivers Mother’s Message, a touching item. The
message gets more tuneful and more heartfelt as she proceeds. He replies with a different
tune (Son’s Reply), with cheerful memories of early home life – she joins in with his (Son’s
Reply) tune and he responds with hers (Mother’s Message) and so they duet happily until the
distinctly embarrassing moment when he realizes he is face to face with a proposal of marriage.
    After the chatter of the cigarette girls Carmen’s languid insolence44 in the face of Zuniga’s
questioning is wonderfully effective – as the scene plays on Bizet works a novel kind of magic,
for the spoken word over music is not the usual form of ‘melodrame’ i.e. the music reflecting
the sense/emotion in the text. Instead the orchestra picks away at Carmen’s Tra La La La whilst
the perplexed soldiers talk as they truss her up.
    Carmen’s second top of the pops solo number – Seguidille48 (name for a traditional Spanish
dance). A scorcher. She uses all her sexiness to mesmerize Don José into accepting an invitation
to form what nowadays we would call a relationship, and he, poor sod, falls for it. Again very
Spanish (or what we non-Spaniards think is very Spanish), jerky rhythms, swoops, lingering in
the middle of a phrase etc. – everything in fact except the castanets and the odd shout of olé.
A terrific success. Followed by the runaway end to the act – Don José safely trapped, subdued
excitement in the orchestra, Zuniga insulted once again, the escape – and then bedlam.

Act II
MINUTES FROM THE START
2: Les tringles des sistres**
10: Votre toast … je peux vous le rendre***
18: Nous avons en těte***
19: Quand il s’agit***
24: Je vais danser***
30: La fleur que tu m’avais jetée***
35: Lá-bas – lá-bas dans la montagne***
42: Suis-nous á travers**
This act is made up of four stunning set pieces, every one a winner, plus the finale: the first,
the Gypsy Dance, begins with the Entr’acte, now often played with the curtain up and the
gypsies going at it in full swing: Carmen starts up with her description of the gypsies’ dance,2
racy, heady and soon coming to merge with the dance itself: the dance gets faster and faster and
ends in a whirl – dancers all as high as kites. Packs a powerful Spanish punch.
    Escamillo’s fans can be heard belting out the Bullfight Parade in the distance: they arrive
and belt it out again: Escamillo uninvited treats the company to a vivid colour picture of the

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Toreador’s public and private life:10 one of opera’s most hackneyed pieces, played by brass
bands, mangled by inadequate baritones, always round the corner on almost any middlebrow
radio music programme, blaring out at agricultural shows, whistled, hummed by millions and
unsparingly parodied – if a number can survive all this it deserves three stars and Toreador
can – just – survive with a top-class singer, although we may wish that Bizet had not opted to
repeat the Toreador Toreador bit four times.
    Now for a patch of inspired magic: perhaps the best item in the act – the quintet18 with the
two leading smugglers and the three gypsy girls: the men tell the girls they’ll be needed for
a job in fast darting exchanges which introduce the quintet proper (the men alone first then
all five).19 This is not a ‘thinks’ piece nor a plot-assister, it is a joyous celebration of woman’s
superiority to man in the matter of cheating, conning, double-crossing, lying, etc. and it should
delight the heart of every ardent feminist. A catchy tune, fast, staccato, marvellous part writing
and generally just a little gem. But – we proceed. The men tell the girls they are wanted that
night: Carmen refuses: the men plead with quite a new theme that would melt the heart of
anyone but Carmen: she is adamant: they try again in yet another quite new and self-contained
exchange: finally a reprise of the glorious racey fivesome chorus. Five minutes of delight.
    The Carmen/Don José duet24 is the centrepiece of the act. Carmen dances for him, this time
with castanets and all (but no olés). It is a lazy beguiling tune and she la-la-las to it (no opera
has more tras and las to the acre than Carmen): the regimental bugles play an unknown but
apparently significant call: Don José breaks into the dance in an embarrassed fashion: Carmen
is goaded out of teasing into a flurry of anger and she goes for him in the most musically
agitated passage in the scene: he pleads sweetly and mournfully – no good she tells him:
get out. Then suddenly, as ever, the Death Theme forebodes something terrible to come. Don
José in his longest and finest solo piece30 tells Carmen of his longings for her in prison (the
Flower Song). A noble impassioned quasi-aria finishing with a tremendously urgent statement
of I-Love-You. Carmen contradicts: if he loved her he would join her in the gypsy life: another
wonderfully apt melody35 – Away into the mountain – which runs on amongst the argument.
    The finale is capped by a nomadic chorus42 – it sounds as if the mob was already tramping
towards their beloved mountains until – at the very end – we have a short burst of the magical
quintet, now in praise of Liberty rather than female criminality.

Act III Sc 1
MINUTES FROM THE START
0**
5: Ecoute, compagnon, écoute*
10: Et maintenant, parlez, mes belles**
12: En vain pour éviter*
17: Quant au douanier**
21: Je dis que rien*
30: Holà, José!*
The prelude0 is another stand-alone gem, though it fits perfectly the mood of moonlight,
stillness and stealth. The flute has the first turn with the ingenuous little tune, which stays with
the woodwind throughout.

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    The midnight march** of the smugglers, full of weariness and wariness and leading to their
morale-boosting chorus5 and sextet, in spite of which they continue to sound pretty well ready
for a kip.
    The card trio: Frasquita and Mercedes take the fortune-telling game lightly enough, notably
in their delicious duet/refrain10 asking the cards (very nicely) to do their stuff. Not so Carmen:
she draws a wrong ‘un and dives into the darkest of dramatic recitatifs then sings a doomy
gloomy aria12 in which she seems convinced that a spade is a spade and means burial, preceded
by death.
    The customs officers’ trio and chorus.17 The girls say ‘Leave ’em to us’ to a catchy coquettish
little number which if inverted is not a million miles away from ‘Toreador’.
    Micaela, wildly out of place amongst the rocks and smugglers, swears she will find Don José
and confront front Carmen, whatever.21 A free-moving, sometimes affecting, piece with no
great melodic strength.
    The cunningly crafted finale works wonderfully well, though without any great musical
landmarks. The confrontation between Escamillo and Don José with its combative duet30 winds
up to the knife fight, then Escamillo’s dignified farewell accompanied by a sadly diminished
Toreador tune, Micaela’s repeat of Mother’s Message from Act I leading to news of Mother’s
impending death, Don José’s Goodbye – but we’ll meet again to the Death Theme and finally
the retreating Escamillo keeping his pecker up with the distant Toreador as he stumbles down
the mountain back to the bullring.

Act III Sc 2
MINUTES FROM THE START
39**
43: Les voici, voici le quadrille***
50: C’est toi? C’est moi***
The last scene is Bizet’s greatest tour de force.
    The very Spanish fairground prelude39 has the woodwind playing the tune with the strings
(pizzicato) giving a big-scale guitar accompaniment.
    After the opening chorus and a good deal of quick operatic trading (no-one asks the price
of anything; no-one haggles), the procession starts off to the glorious strains of the Bullfight
Parade43 in full fig. There is a sort of double act: the chorus race-read the notables in the
procession and between each dollop of information we have another orchestral helping of the
Parade (four times, and always welcome). Then a brief pause for the ‘I love yous’ between
Escamillo and Carmen, the Mayor’s douce and decent little march, and the Parade dies away. So
to the final duet:50 Don José sweetly lyrical, still pleading, Carmen cool, firm and declamatory.
    Now the climax: Don José begins to break up: he shouts and bawls his passion for Carmen:
the bullring huzzas break in with a savage irony – Escamillo has killed his bull – Don José’s
jealousy erupts: suddenly the Death Theme strikes home and the now half-crazed Don José
seizes his dagger and strikes his blow, and offstage we hear not the Parade, but Toreador
darkened by a sinister new theme in the lower strings. So back to the Death Theme and Don
José’s last broken utterances of desolation and despair.

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NOTES
Carmen Bizet’s tenth (including operetta) and the last of his performed operas
First night     Opéra Comique, Paris, 3 March 1875
Reception After the first act some applause, after the second less, during the third boos:
last scene – debacle. This reception broke Bizet’s spirit and stands as a lasting
and terrible indictment of French musical taste
Libretto Meilhac and Halévy
Source A novel by Prosper Mérimée

NEWS AND GOSSIP

In Mérimée’s novel Don José tells the story himself, how he lost his rank, his position and
finally his life itself because of his crazy infatuation with the gypsy Carmen. Mérimée’s Don
José is a tougher more brutal type than Bizet’s. He had already committed three murders before
he met Carmen and there was nothing of the big soft Nelly about him. But even Bizet’s Don
José was too much for the Opéra Comique whose management believed in family viewing and
fought a rearguard action against the sex and violence in the show from the date of commission
right through rehearsals and up to the first night. We shall never know how much give there
was and how much take and who gave and who took, but the final libretto still looks like a
win for the home team over the Mary White-houses of the day. The librettists, Meilhac and
Halévy, broadened and thickened the story: Micaela was no more than a one-line reference in
Mérimée: a great deal of the colour (kids playing soldiers, smugglers’ quintet, fortune-telling)
was added to move the piece away from a single narrative line to something of a pageant of
Spanish life with the original story still as a core of steel. Above all, there was the brilliant idea
of setting the murder outside the bullring.
After the Paris disaster, Carmen was given the reception it deserved in Vienna in October
of the same year. That conservative but truly musical city acclaimed it as a masterpiece and
as a masterpiece it has been acclaimed ever since, standing right amongst the top of the most
respected pops in every civilized country, including even France.

COMMENT
Carmen has a head start on most operas because of its libretto. The script team – Meil and
Hal – did Bizet proud with a dramatization of Mérimée’s story that could almost as well hold
the stage as a play – and a gripper at that – but which they shaped into exactly the right article
for Bizet’s genius – lots of big numbers, not continuous music, plenty of colour, and with the
story pounding along with a pulse like a cannon. They were a couple of real pros and even at
this distance we should raise a glass to them as well as to Bizet for giving us this stunning piece.
Indeed so artful were they that the spoken dialogue seems a natural part of the scene and not a
leap into another idiom as it does so often in even the best Singspiels, e.g. Fidelio and The Magic
Flute. And the lyrics themselves are as taut and as pointed as those of Rodgers or Lowe.
Carmen is perhaps the first true verismo opera, for Traviata still had the heavy aroma of
romantic love hanging around it, Cav and Pag are in truth both barn-storming melodramas,
but in Don José we recognize a real man, who self-destructs because of his infatuation with a

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real woman, Carmen, perhaps the first truly three-dimensional operatic heroine who becomes
every bit as much of our lives as Anna Karenina or Madame Bovary.
Until the last scene Carmen can be misread as a succession of smash hits with talking in
between. It is true that Carmen’s set-piece solos, Toreador and Don José’s Flower Song will
bring the house down any day, but the real power of the opera lies in the contrast between the
pomp and panache of the bullfight music (and the confident Spanish music of the gypsies) and
Don José’s tortured musical journey through the opera to his final ‘O Carmen! Ma Carmen
adorée.’ The final scene, with what in film terms would be cross-cutting between the inside and
the outside of the bullring, is even better in sound than it would be in pictures.
Carmen’s impact is direct to the solar plexus, no doubt through the brain, but without requiring
too much assistance from that quarter. It is clear, uncomplicated and, as Nietzsche said [Who
he? Ed.], is the perfect antidote to the paranoia of Wagner. Bizet’s sound too is a million miles
away from that of Brahms and Wagner: he uses the woodwind as if they were a separate set of
singers: nearly every piece has the singer or the woodwind in the lead and overall the sound is
sparkling, clear and with no trace of German mud. The score is also exceedingly Spanish and
despite all the De Fallas and Granadoses Carmen, along with Rimsky’s ‘Capriccio Espagnol’,
remains one of the two best-known pieces in the ‘Spanish’ repertory. How a Frenchman and
a Russian came to make Spanish music more popular than the native Spaniards is a mystery.
(No-one did it for England and any foreigner who tried to out-German the Germans would
have been disembowelled by the Viennese musical mafia.)
Carmen is as near bullet-proof as any opera can be. It flourished in a recent splendid film,
was transformed in an earlier film, Carmen Jones, and some would say enhanced, by Peter
Brook, it even survived being set in a used-car lot by English National Opera. So Carmen is
great, Carmen is a wonder, and anyone who don’t like Carmen don’t like opera and should look
elsewhere for musical excitement and perhaps will find it in the works of Adlgasser, Scriabin
or Thelonius Monk. Alpha-plus.

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