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J. Bizet's opera "Carmen"

The plot of J. Bizet's opera "Carmen" is taken from the novel of the same name by P. Merimee. At the center of the cycle of events is a beautiful, passionate and freedom-loving gypsy, who with her lifestyle and actions changes the lives of the people around her. This is the composer's last opera, which has gone through a thorny path to fame and the stages of world theaters. It is considered the culmination of creativity Georges Bizet and his life fiasco.

Read a summary of Bizet's opera "" and many interesting facts about this work on our page.

Summary of “Carmen”

The opera takes place in Spain, in the first half of the 19th century. Carmen is a beautiful, passionate, temperamental gypsy who works in a cigarette factory. She noticeably stands out among other workers - as soon as this burning beauty appears on the street, all the admiring male gazes immediately turn to her. Carmen takes particular pleasure in mocking the men around her and their feelings. But the temperamental girl does not like the fact that Jose is indifferent to her; she tries in every possible way to attract his attention. Having failed, the gypsy, along with other girls, returns to work. However, a quarrel breaks out among them, which instantly turns into a fight. The culprit of the conflict turns out to be Carmen. She is sent to a cell, where she languishes while awaiting a warrant under the supervision of Jose. But the insidious seductress makes the sergeant fall in love with her, and he helps her escape from custody. This reckless act completely turns his life upside down: Jose loses everything - his girlfriend, family, respect, rank and becomes a simple soldier.

And all this time, Carmen continues to lead an idle life - together with her friends, she wanders through taverns, where she entertains visitors with her songs and dances. At the same time, the girl manages to collaborate with smugglers and flirt with the bullfighter Escamillo. Soon Jose appears at the tavern, but not for long - it’s time for him to return to the barracks for an evening check. However, the gypsy uses all her charm so as not to let the soldier leave her. Jose is fascinated by her, and the captain’s order means nothing to him now. He becomes a deserter and is now forced to be with Carmen and the smugglers. But soon the feelings of the burning beauty fade away - she is bored with Jose. Now she was seriously infatuated with the bullfighter, who even promised to fight in her honor. And the soldier in love is forced to leave her temporarily - he learns from his former lover that his mother is dying, and he hastily goes to her.

Preparations for a bullfight are underway in a square in Seville. The gypsy prepares to join the celebration, but Jose appears on her way. He begs the girl to be with him again, confesses his love, threatens, but everything is in vain - she is cold towards him. In a fit of anger, he takes out a dagger and plunges it into his beloved.

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Interesting Facts

• Surprisingly, I have never been to Spain. To create the necessary musical atmosphere, he reworked folk melodies, giving them the desired Spanish flavor.
• In 1905, scientists discovered a new asteroid, which was named “Carmen”.

• The famous German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck was present at the screening of Carmen 27 times under various circumstances.
• English musicologist Hugh MacDonald wrote that French opera does not know a greater fatalist than Carmen. Outside France, its descendants could be Richard Strauss's Salome and Alban Berg's Lulu.
• The play premiered on March 3, 1875 and ended in complete failure. And exactly 3 months after it, the composer himself died. The causes of his death are still debated. According to one version, Bizet could not survive the fiasco of “Carmen” and the “immorality” of which he was accused after the premiere. The opera seemed indecent to the public, because its heroes were bandits, smoking factory workers, smugglers and ordinary soldiers. And when characterizing the main character of the opera, art connoisseurs did not mince words at all - she was the true embodiment of vulgarity and dirt.
• The opera was designated by the composer as comic. And the first performance took place at the Opera-Comic. What does the comic have to do with it, you ask? It's simple. According to the traditions of the French theater, all works in which the main characters are ordinary people were classified as comedies. It is for this reason that the opera alternates musical numbers with spoken dialogues - all comic operas in France were built according to this scheme.
• One of the co-directors of the Opera Comique theater had to leave his position because of this work. Adolphe de Leuven believed that in a genre such as comic opera there should absolutely be no murder, especially such a terrible and sophisticated one. In his opinion, violence absolutely does not fit into the norms of a decent society. He tried in every possible way to convince the authors of this, repeatedly inviting librettists to talk with him, persuading them to make Carmen’s character softer and change the ending. The latter was required so that the audience left the theater in a great mood. However, they never reached agreement, and as a result Adolf was forced to leave his post. This became a kind of sign of protest against the performance, which promoted murder.

• Shortly before his death, J. Bizet entered into a contract with the Vienna State Opera for the production of Carmen. Despite some edits and differences from the author's original, the performance was a huge success. "Carmen" won praise not only from ordinary spectators, but also from such prominent composers as Johannes Brahms And Richard Wagner . This was the first serious success of J. Bizet’s creation on the way to world recognition.
• On October 23, 1878, the first premiere of this work in the United States took place at the New York Academy of Music. In the same year, the opera appeared before the audience in St. Petersburg.
• “Carmen” was the last opera staged on the stage of the Bolshoi (Kamenny) Theater. It was with this work that the theater decided to end its history - after the last production it was closed, then transferred to the RMO, and then completely demolished. In 1896, the building of the St. Petersburg Conservatory was erected in its place.

Popular arias and numbers

Habanera - listen

Escamillo's couplets - listen

Aria Jose - listen

Gypsy dance - listen

The history of the creation of "Carmen"

He announced his plans to write the opera Carmen in 1872. Even then, the “Comic Opera” placed an order with the famous librettists Henri Meillac and Ludovic Halévy, and they worked hard on the text. They managed to significantly transform P. Merimee's novel. First of all, the changes affected the images of the main characters - in their interpretation they became more noble. Jose, from a severe lawbreaker, turned into an honest but weak-willed man. The gypsy woman is also presented differently - her independence is more emphasized, and the thirst for theft and cunning are hidden. The authors also changed the location of the action - if in the literary source everything happened in slums and gorges, then in the libretto all events were transferred to the center of Seville, to squares and streets. The playwrights introduced a new character into the opera - Jose's beloved, Micaela, to show the complete opposite of Carmen. The bullfighter turned from an uninitiative and nameless participant into a cheerful Escamillo, who played a decisive role in the fate of the main character.

The text was completely ready by the spring of 1873, and then the composer began work. The opera was completely finished in the summer of 1874.

However, rejection of this opera appeared long before its production, as soon as the idea was voiced - the abundance of dramatic events and the intensity of passions were not suitable for the stage in which the first production was planned. The thing is that the Opera Comique was considered a secular theater, which was visited only by representatives of the wealthy class. Going to the theater, they knew in advance that they would see a light genre with an abundance of funny situations. This audience was far from frenzied passions, and certainly from bloody murders. The opera presented characters and passions unacceptable to the public - girls unencumbered by morality, cigarette factory workers, robbers, military deserters.

The opera premiered in the capital of France, at the Opera Comique. It was March 3, 1875. The audience did not know how to react to this performance: it had very beautiful music, instantly etched in the memory, but there was also a terrible plot, which is simply indecent to talk about in secular society. The opera was a failure, and its authors were accused of debauchery and immorality. But, despite the fact that Bizet’s creation was a complete fiasco, it was staged 45 times that year. And the reason for this is quite simple - ordinary human curiosity. The public was haunted by the fact that all of Paris was talking about this work at that time. Interest in the work intensified at the beginning of summer - exactly 3 months after the premiere, J. Bizet died. Many came to the conclusion that the failure with Carmen was to blame, because the failure and persecution from the press provoked a nervous shock in the maestro and contributed to the deterioration of his health. After the end of the theater season, it was decided to remove the play from the stage. Then everyone was sure that he would never appear there again.

In the autumn of 1875 the opera was staged in Vienna in German. However, what was shown to the audience was radically different from what Bizet intended - it was a real opera-ballet with many dance numbers. The Vienna theater decided to surprise the audience with a spectacular spectacle - riders on real horses and a whole cortege of bullfighters were brought onto the stage.

In December of the same year, Carmen was staged in Italy. Subsequently, the work had unprecedented success and was immediately included in the repertoire of many world theaters. Moreover, the audience liked the Viennese, classical production. Other directors who staged this opera in other European countries relied on it.

In February 1878, the opera was brought to Russia and shown to wealthy audiences on the stage of the Bolshoi (Kamenny) Theater in St. Petersburg. It was performed by the imperial Italian troupe in its version. Many scenes were cut from the work in order not to shock the audience. However, this did not help, and the performance was not a success. In many ways, this turn of events was facilitated by the fact that the soloists did not have time to prepare well, since they were in a hurry with the production. As many newspapers wrote at that time, the premiere of this performance was more like a rehearsal, so many flaws and “roughness” were present in it.

But in 1882, the audience greeted another production of the play with delight, and, finally, Bizet’s work received the recognition it deserved. Its initiator was the new director of the imperial theaters I.A. Vsevolozhsky. The cut excerpts reappeared on stage, a new cast was chosen, and all the choreographic numbers were choreographed.

In 1885, the text of the libretto was translated into Russian, and in this version the opera was first performed at the Mariinsky Theater,

The fact that Carmen received worldwide recognition made the French again interested in it. One of the composers of that time, Ernest Guiraud, decided to make his own edition - he replaced all the spoken dialogues in Bizet’s work with recitatives, and also decorated the finale of the opera with bright choreographic scenes. The opera was staged in Paris in this version in 1883, and this time it was a real triumph. After 21 years, the capital of France saw the anniversary, thousandth performance of "".

One of the first Russian composers to become acquainted with this work Bizet , became P.I. Chaikovsky . He loved it so much that Pyotr Ilyich even learned the entire clavier by heart. And when the media kept publishing negative reviews and devastating reviews, he insisted that one day this opera would become the most popular in the world. And the Russian genius was not mistaken. Today, the tragic story about the life of a freedom-loving gypsy, as interpreted by the great French maestro, is considered one of the pinnacles of opera music - a brilliant, exemplary and inimitable creation.

Video: watch the opera “Carmen” by Georges Bizet

Popular and without false modesty, a unique, extraordinary exotic pop duo “Kar-man”, which translated into English means “man-machine”, formed in 1989, was first conceived by Sergei Lemokh (real name Ogurtsov) and Andrei Grozny (producer of the group Blestyashchie , MF-3), but circumstances changed after the meeting between Sergei Lemokh and Bogdan Titomir. Sergei changed all his plans regarding the creation of a new musical project, which would later be called the exotic pop duo “Kar-Man”, namely, he decided to create a male duet together with Bogdan Titomir, and all the themes of the songs that they wrote together in at that time there were truly exotic content: about countries, continents, cities.

This was the first male duet in the USSR, and a duet that not only performed their songs, but also had a whole choreographic dance for each song. In a word, the guys simply lit up the hearts of many fans of fashionable dance music in Russia, and their popularity grew exponentially.
This was the case until 1991: there were tours, concerts, incredible popularity.

And in 1991, the recording company Gala Records offered a contract with huge obligations from the duo members for 10 years in advance, which Bogdan Titomir refused to sign, but Sergei signed. This is where the story of the duo ended and the story of the Kar-Man group began. It should be noted that the reason for the collapse can be considered not only this fact, but also the fact that Titomir and Lemokh were real leaders and each of them in the team wanted to be in the first roles.

The guys decided to mutually part ways. Bogdan began his solo career with the now well-known hit of the 90s, “Do as I do,” and Sergei continued to work with the Kar-Man group.
A little more background: first, Sergei Lemokh and Bogdan Titomir worked as backup dancers for Vladimir Maltsev, for whom they wrote their first song, for the then non-existent exotic pop duo "Kar-Man" - Paris, Paris, later simply "Paris" (lyrics and the music was written by Sergey Ogurtsov i.e. Lemokh) in the context of the first album "Kar-Man" under the romantic name "Around the World"

This is what they looked like at the peak of the 90s:

All the choreography, image and almost all the music and words were done by Sergei Lemokh, which he continued to do without Bogdan, in which, by the way, he recruited a group of dancers, and one girl, a soloist and dancer, who would later become his wife.
Further, the story of the Kar-Man group does not end and they exist to this day, here is their latest work, it is clearly noticeable that Sergei is quite tired:

Full discography of Kar-Man:

1. Around the World (magnetic album - Gala 1990) (Gala/Sintez, 1991 - vinyl, reissued on CD and MC Gala Records in 1994)
2. Carmania (Gala Records, 1991 - magnetic album, 1992 - vinyl, reissued on CD and MC in 1994)
3. Russian massive sound aggression (J.S.P., 1994; 1997; 2004)
4. Polaris (1995)
5. Your Sexy Thing (Zeko, 1996)
6. King of the Disc (J.S.P., 1998; 2003)

I would like to say that the joint work of Sergei and Bogdan is certainly much more impressive than all their individual work taken together. But rumors know that Bogdan even offered Sergei to create a joint project, but Sergei categorically refused.
Now Sergei Lemokh (Sergei Ogurtsov) is further trying to promote Car-Men, the music, to be honest, is very different from what it was in the early 90s. It's hard to listen to, stuffed with glamorous modern musical effects, but unfortunately you won't find the music that Sergei wrote there.
Although, everyone will decide for themselves what they like. Here is the official page

Georges Bizet is considered to be "Carmen". Her story was not easy, and this wonderful work did not immediately resonate with the public and critics. After all, “Carmen” is an opera in which one of the fundamental principles of plot construction at that time was violated. For the first time, not aristocrats, but ordinary people with their sins, passions, and vivid feelings were brought onto the stage.

The play premiered at the Opera Comique in Paris in 1875. The reaction that followed left its creator bitterly disappointed. Georges Bizet, author of the opera Carmen, was considered one of the talented composers of his time. He created his opera at the peak of his career. The libretto was written by L. Halévy and A. Meillac based on the novel by P. Mérimée. The audience who attended the premiere performance had divided opinions. The first performer of the role of the gypsy Carmen was the singer Celestine Galli-Mathieu. She managed to perfectly convey the courage of the heroine. Some were delighted by this, while others were outraged. The newspapers called the opera ugly, scandalous and vulgar.

However, Carmen is an opera whose genius was appreciated much later and truly loved. Our classical composer P.I. spoke about this. Tchaikovsky, he called it a masterpiece. One of the most memorable melodies that fill the opera is the heroine’s aria “Love, like a bird, has wings.” The composer created it based on the melody of the habanera and the seductive description of the gypsy woman in P. Merimee’s short story. In addition to this aria, “Toreador March” and Suite No. 2 became truly popular.

Due to its atypicality for that time, the opera turned into a popular performance. Carmen describes the life of ordinary people, and at the same time, the opera is not devoid of romanticism. If we describe the summary of the opera “Carmen”, we can summarize it in a few phrases. The plot is based on the third chapter of the novel of the same name by P. Merimee, and it is about love. The play takes place in Spain, so the composer filled the opera with classic Spanish melodies: flamenco, paso doble, habanera.

The main character of both the short story and the opera is the gypsy Carmen. The opera presents her as uninhibited, free, and does not recognize laws. The gypsy is capable of changing the fates of everyone who happens to be close to her. She attracts the attention of men, enjoys their love, but does not consider their feelings. According to the plot, a beautiful gypsy woman works at a cigarette factory. A fight lands her at the police station. Her guard was Sergeant Jose. She was able to make him fall in love with her and convince him to let her go. For the sake of the gypsy, Jose lost everything: his position, respect in society. He became a simple soldier. Carmen collaborated with smugglers and flirted with the bullfighter Escamillo. She was tired of Jose. He tried to return his beloved, but she abruptly told him that it was all over. Then Jose killed his beloved Carmen so that no one would get her.

J. Bizet was very upset by the failure of the premiere performance of “Carmen”. The opera, later recognized as a masterpiece, took a lot of energy from the composer. Shortly after the premiere, 3 months later, the composer died at the age of 37. On the verge of death, J. Bizet said: “Jose killed Carmen, and Carmen killed me!”

Nevertheless, the story of a free life, unbridled passions and accidental death due to jealousy has been attracting audiences to theaters for many years. To this day, Carmen is successfully performed on the most famous opera stages in the world.

Opera in four acts by Georges Bizet to a libretto by Henri Milhac and Ludovico Halevi, based on a short story by Prosper Mérimée.

Characters:

CARMEN, gypsy (soprano, mezzo-soprano or contralto)
DON JOSE, corporal (tenor)
ESCAMILO, bullfighter (baritone)
MICHAELA, peasant woman (soprano)
EL DANCAYRO, smuggler (baritone)
EL REMENDADO, smuggler (tenor)
ZUNIGA, Captain Jose (bass)
MORALES, officer (bass or baritone)
FRASCHITA, gypsy (soprano)
MERCEDES, gypsy (soprano)

Time period: around 1820.
Location: Seville and its surroundings.
First performance: Paris, Opéra Comique, 3 March 1875.

Carmen is, I am sure, the most popular of all operas. There is an opinion that the cause of Bizet’s death was the mental trauma he received from the failure of the opera at its premiere (the composer died three months after it). But it is a fact that this opera was received much better than any of Bizet’s previous works (already in the year of its production at the Opera Comique, “Carmen” was given thirty-seven times and has since been performed on this stage more than three thousand times). In fact, Bizet died - aged just thirty-seven - from illness; it was probably an embolism (blockage of a blood vessel). Nowadays, this opera is included in the repertoire of all opera troupes and is performed in all languages, including Japanese. Her popularity is not limited only to the opera stage. It has expanded into the repertoire of restaurant music, and exists in piano transcriptions as well as film versions (the latest and most successful, Carmen Jones, is based on an operetta version that was a hit on Broadway).

It is not difficult to understand the reason for such popularity. The opera has many great melodies! She is extraordinarily dramatic. She is so brilliant and clear! In addition, all these characteristic features are already revealed in the overture. It starts bright and clear - like a sunny day in Spain. Next, the famous melody of the bullfighter's couplets sounds, and finally it unexpectedly becomes dramatic - at the moment when the theme of fate is heard in the orchestra, the very theme that characterizes Carmen and her frantic love.

ACT I

The overture ends with a dramatic dissonant chord. The curtain rises. In front of us is a square in Seville (almost 180 years ago). Sultry afternoon. At the barracks there is a group of soldiers off duty, they look at passers-by and cynically discuss them. There is a cigar factory right across from the barracks. Michaela appears. She is not local and is looking for her friend Corporal Don Jose here and, when she finds out that he is not here, embarrassed by the offers of his colleagues to stay with them, she leaves. There is a changing of the guard, during which a group of street urchins pose as soldiers. Among those replaced are Don Jose and his commander, Captain Zuniga, who, in a brief conversation with Don Jose, is interested in the girls working at the cigar factory. They are obviously attractive, as a group of young men (today we would call them country cowboys) are gathered at the factory gates, waiting for them to come out for their lunch break. The ringing of the bell at the factory announces the beginning of the break, and a crowd of broken, cheerful workers pour out of the gates, they smoke cigars - a rather bold activity for a girl in the twenties of the 19th century! But the assembled young men are waiting first of all for the most attractive of them - Carmen.

The orchestra announces Carmen's appearance with a short version of the theme of her fate; here, finally, she herself. She flirts with boys and sings. The famous habanera sounds (“L’amour est un oiseau rebelle” - “Love has wings like a bird”). This is a frank warning that Carmen's love is a dangerous business. Don Jose (he always seemed to me to be some kind of formalist and pedant) does not pay any attention to Carmen, and at the end of her song she disdainfully throws a flower at him. The girls return to work and laugh at his embarrassment.

Michaela arrives, still looking for Don Jose. she has a letter to him from his mother and a gift - a good reason for a very tender duet (“Parle moi ma mere” - “What did the relatives say?”). Before they have time to finish their duet, a terrible noise is heard in the factory, and the workers run out into the street. Captain Zuniga, trying to restore order, finds out that the reason for Carmen’s panic: she attacked one of the girls and slashed her with a knife. He orders Don José to arrest the culprit, bring her to him for trial in the barracks and guard her until he decides what to do with her. Left alone with Don José, Carmen finally wins the heart of the young soldier with a heady seguidilla (“Pres de la porte de Seville" - "Near the bastion in Seville"). In it, she promises to sing and dance for him - and love him! - in a tavern near Seville (not a very good reputation), which is kept by her friend Lilyas Pastya. Zuniga returns, he gives the order to Don Jose to take Carmen to prison. On the way there, she manages to push Don Jose away and escape. As a result, the young corporal was arrested.

ACT II

Each of the four acts of Carmen is preceded by its own symphonic introduction, or intermission. The intermission for the second act is based on a short soldier's song, which Don José later sings. As the curtain rises we see Lillas Pasta's tavern. Gypsy dance is full of fiery fun. Captain Zuniga, this boss of Jose, is also here. Of the visitors, he is the most important person. Now he is trying to win Carmen over. He doesn't succeed very well - Carmen prefers a less respectable society. However, she is pleased to hear that the sixty-day period of Don Jose’s guardhouse, which he received for connivance in her escape, is ending.

Suddenly a popular athlete appears on stage. This is Escamillo, the bullfighter, and, of course, he sings his famous “Toreador Couples” (“Votre toast, je peux le rendre” - “Toast, friends, I accept yours”); everyone joins him in unison. Like Zuniga, he is captivated by the sparkle in Carmen's eyes. The same one, for her part, can give him no more hope.

But it’s already late, and it’s time to close the tavern. Soon everyone leaves, and no one remains except Carmen and four smugglers - two girls named Frasquita and Mercedes, and a couple of bandits - El Dancairo and El Remendado. They sing together a light, lively quintet (“Nous avons en tete une affaire” - “We want to offer you a job”). Everyone talks about the need for girls to carry out smuggling raids, because this is their business. Where it is necessary to deceive, to divert attention, women are irreplaceable. At this moment, the voice of Don Jose is heard behind the stage, singing his soldier’s song.

Carmen, waiting for Jose, escorts everyone out of the tavern and warmly greets Don Jose, who came here after his release from arrest. As she promised, she sings and dances for him. In the midst of her dance, the sound of a trumpet is heard, which for Don Jose is a signal to report to the barracks. He wants to go, but this inflames Carmen even more. “Is this how you treat a girl?” - she shouts to him. Carmen is angry: she no longer wants to see a man for whom there is something more important than her love. Touched by her reproaches, he takes out the flower that she once threw to him, and in a very passionate “aria about the flower” he talks about how it inspired him all those days that he spent in prison (“La fleur que tu m’ avais jete” - “You see how sacredly I preserve the flower that you gave me”). Touched and softened in heart, Carmen again addresses him with affection. But what she could not achieve with affection, jealousy achieves: Zuniga, Don Jose’s commander, appears on the threshold of the tavern: an officer has come to see Carmen on a date, and the corporal has nothing else to do here. He arrogantly orders Don José to go to the barracks. Well, this is too much! Don José, having lost his head, draws his saber; he is ready to attack the senior officer. At this moment, the gypsies burst in and disarm the captain. Don Jose has no choice: he abandons his military career and joins a gang of gypsies - smugglers - this is exactly what Carmen planned. The second act ends with a chorus glorifying free life. Everyone sings it enthusiastically except Zuniga.

ACT III

The flute solo, which begins the intermission for the third act, paints a poetic picture of nature - the peace and quiet of the slumbering mountains. A chorus of smugglers sounds, a song to which Don José was forced to join. Now they have settled down for a short rest among the mountains in a secluded place, where they are engaged in their illegal business. Don Jose suffers from homesickness (he dreams of a quiet peasant life), and he is tormented by remorse. Only his passionate love for Carmen keeps him in the smuggling camp. But Carmen doesn't love him anymore, she's tired of him. A breakup is inevitable. What do the cards predict? Frasquita and Mercedes are guessing. I must say that they have predicted a very attractive future for themselves: Frasquita is destined to meet a passionate lover, Mercedes is destined to meet a rich old man who intends to marry her, and she, Carmen, is destined to meet “spades” for the umpteenth time - death. “It’s pointless to try to escape your own destiny,” she sings in the famous “card” aria. But now the signal sounds for the smugglers to go to work, that is, to try to smuggle their goods across the border. (Their choir in this place always amazes me with its noisiness, because it is sung by criminals engaged in illegal and therefore secret operations.)

As they leave, Micaela appears, looking for Don Jose. She is very frightened and asks God for protection in a touching aria (“Je dis que rien ne m’epouvante” - “I assure myself in vain”). Suddenly Jose, who was left to guard part of the goods, shoots at someone who is sneaking here. The frightened girl is hiding. However, Jose was not aiming at Michaela, but, as it turned out, at Escamillo, who came here in search of Carmen, with whom he was in love. Recognizing him, Don Jose grabs a knife, and a fight ensues between the rivals, but Escamillo’s dagger breaks, and the bullfighter ends up on the ground. At this moment - very opportunely - Carmen appears to save the bullfighter. Having exquisitely thanked Carmen, he invites everyone to his next performance in Seville. Escamillo leaves, and then Don José discovers Micaela's presence nearby. She tells why she decided to go on this dangerous journey after the smugglers: Don Jose’s mother is dying and wants to see him for the last time. Carmen scornfully tells Jose that he better go. But before leaving, he turns to her and angrily warns that they will meet again - only death can separate them. A bullfighter's aria sounds behind the stage, Carmen tries to run towards him. But Don José, turning to her once again, roughly, with all his might, pushes her so that she falls to the ground. Only after this is it deleted. The orchestra repeats the bullfighter's melody quietly and ominously.

ACT IV

The last act is preceded by one of the most brilliant orchestral fragments of the entire score - a symphonic episode, captivating with its rhythmic pulsation, in the style of the Spanish folk dance of polo. Everyone is in festive clothes; everyone is ready to enjoy the magnificent performance of Escamillo in the arena in Seville. Noble ladies, officers, commoners, soldiers - it seems that the whole city has gathered, wanting to see the bullfight. Finally, the bullfighter himself appears and with him on his arm is Carmen, dressed with the luxury with which only a bull-winner at the zenith of his glory could afford to dress his beloved. They sing a short and rather banal love duet. And when Escamillo disappears inside the theater, everyone, with the exception of Carmen, rushes after him. Her friends, Frasquita and Mercedes, warn her that Don José is hiding somewhere here. She defiantly remains standing alone, declaring that she is not afraid of him.

Don Jose enters, he advances menacingly towards her, in rags, wounded - a striking contrast to Carmen on the day of her triumph. He conjures her to return to him. The answer was her firm refusal. One more of his pleas - and again the answer was only contempt. In the end, she furiously throws the gold ring he gave her right in his face. Behind the stage, a jubilant chorus sounds to the victorious bullfighter - Don Jose's lucky rival. Lost by all this, Don Jose threatens Carmen with a dagger. She desperately tries to hide from him in the theater. But at that moment, when the crowd in the theater enthusiastically greets the winner - Escamillo, Don Jose here, on the street, plunges a dagger into the beloved he has lost forever. The crowd pours out of the theater. Don José, mentally broken, shouts in despair: “Arrest me! I killed her. Oh my Carmen! - and falls at the feet of the dead Carmen.

Henry W. Simon (translated by A. Maikapara)

Few nineteenth-century operas can compare with this one: the world of music would be incomplete without Carmen, and Bizet would only have to write this opera to become Bizet. But this is not what the audience at the Opera Comique thought when, in 1875, they first received the opera with increasing indifference and even indignation. Particular rejection was caused by the most stormy scenes and the realistic performance of Marie-Celestine Galli-Marier, the performer of the leading role, who later contributed to the establishment of Bizet’s masterpiece on the stage. During the premiere, Gounod, Thomas and Massenet were present in the hall, praising the author only out of politeness. The libretto, to which the composer himself made changes several times, belonged to two masters of the light genre - Halévy (cousin of Bizet's wife) and Méliac, who initially entertained the audience in collaboration with Offenbach, and then independently, creating comedies that were very much appreciated. They drew the plot from Mérimée's novella (even earlier proposed to him by Bizet) and had to work hard to get it accepted into the Opera Comique, where a love story with a bloody end and against a rather common background caused considerable confusion. This theater, which, however, always tried to be less traditional, was visited by the well-intentioned bourgeoisie, who used the performances to arrange the marriage affairs of their children. The variety of characters, mostly ambiguous, that Merimee introduced into his short story - gypsies, thieves, smugglers, cigar factory workers, women of easy virtue and bullfighters - did not contribute to the maintenance of good morals. The librettists managed to create a lively Spanish flavor, they highlighted several bright images, framing them with exquisite choirs and dances, and added to this rather dark company an innocent and pure character - young Michaela, who, although she remained outside the threshold of the action, made it possible to create a number of integral and touching musical pages.

The music embodied the librettists' vision with a precise sense of proportion; this music combined the sensitivity, ardor and strong flavor of Spanish folklore, partly authentic and partly composed, and was intended to give pleasure even to a hostile taste. But this did not happen. Nevertheless, despite the failure, Carmen lasted forty-five performances in the year of its premiere. This was a real record, which was certainly facilitated by curiosity and the desire to see a “scandalous” performance of its kind. After the thirty-fifth performance, there was also added shock caused by the death of the still young author, killed, as they said, by undeserved failure. The first signs of real approval for the opera appeared after the Viennese production in October of the same year (in which spoken dialogues were replaced by recitatives), which attracted the attention and approval of such masters as Brahms and Wagner. Tchaikovsky saw “Carmen” in Paris more than once throughout 1876 and wrote the following enthusiastic words in one of his 1880 letters to von Meck: “... I don’t know anything in music that has a greater right to represent an element that I call pretty, le joli... There are many piquant harmonies, completely new sound combinations, but all this is not an exclusive goal. Bizet is an artist who pays tribute to the century and modernity, but is warmed by true inspiration. And what a wonderful plot of the opera! I can’t play the last scene without tears!” And that some melodies and harmonies, as well as partly the instrumental color, subsequently influenced him - this is beyond any doubt: Bizet portrayed too well the passion flaring and raging in the soul of a beauty, as if spoiled by her own beauty - the beauty and depravity of the heroine feed flame of tragedy.

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote about this in 1888 in the first chapters of the book “The Wagner Case”, after listening to “Carmen” twenty times, for the first time in 1881 in Genoa, when the fate of the opera was already decided. Nietzsche conveys his impressions of “Carmen”: “She approaches, graceful, languid, flirtatious... There is something African in her serenity... her passion is short, unexpected, feverish... This is love - fatum, fate, shameless, innocent, cruel." The tragedy occurs against the backdrop of a bullfight, in broad daylight, where death has nowhere to hide. The heroine's singing - exotic, extraordinary, spontaneous, like a story about a long journey - is combined with the purest and most enthusiastic choral pages that have ever been written. Then a challenge is thrown in the face of the smug spectator, for the first time in European music, a veristic alarm is sounded: something that does not fit well with the good manners of the prima. Already in The Pearl Fishers, Bizet showed how eyes, clouded by the haze of dreams, suddenly begin to see the rough and cruel material world in front of them. But now he created a language not of dreams, but of experience, and was able to introduce elements that academic pedants had always considered impossible in a beautiful style (many of these pedants never understood Carmen).

The vocal part of the opera, being ardent and impetuous, is not without sophistication. Often the melodies, long and wide, languid or very rhythmic, meander and envelop the images with a strange charm, like Carmen’s shawl, which she lowered over her face, covering one eye, while the other threw lightning into hearts. But opera has a place not only for sensuality. Bizet puts everything on the line, the wildest imagination comes into play. This is the final ensemble in the tavern, which dates back to the late Rossini and will influence the comic style of the late 19th century, Verdi's Falstaff: Bizet adds chromatic sharpness to the clicking of heels and castanets (then turning into sparkling singing) and with a high voice begins a free, unrestrained anthem (the same exciting ease permeates the children's march from the first act). There is another anthem - in view of the smugglers' camp - this is a duet between Micaela and Jose, which with its church cadences is close to a lullaby at an accelerated tempo. And what can we say about the appearance of the cigar factory workers with their swaggering gait, about the legendary land of smugglers, about the terzetto with cards, about the luxurious preparations for the bullfight? Truly too much beauty. All this is too perfect not to die of despair.

Bizet, however, knew very well what the true dignity of music is, as we can read about in his article published in 1867 in the Revue National et Étranger. Defending sincerity in art, he wrote: “For me there are only two types of music: good and bad... Make me laugh or cry; portray to me love, hatred, fanaticism, crime: charm me, dazzle me, delight me, and I, of course, will not inflict a stupid insult on you by sticking a label on you, like some coleopterous insect.”

G. Marchesi (translated by E. Greceanii)

History of creation

Bizet began working on the opera Carmen in 1874. Its plot is borrowed from the short story of the same name by the French writer Prosper Merimee (1803-1870), written in 1845. The content of the novella has undergone significant changes in the opera. Experienced writers A. Melyac (1831-1897) and L. Halévy (1834-1908) masterfully developed the libretto, filling it with drama, deepening emotional contrasts, and creating prominent images of characters that were in many ways different from their literary prototypes. Jose, portrayed by the writer as a gloomy, proud and stern robber, acquired different features in the opera; a peasant boy who became a dragoon, he is shown as a simple, honest, but hot-tempered and weak-willed person. The image of the strong-willed, courageous bullfighter Escamillo, barely outlined in the novella, received a bright and juicy characterization in the opera. Compared to the literary prototype, the image of Jose Micaela's bride is even more developed - a gentle and affectionate girl, whose appearance sets off the unbridled and ardent character of the gypsy. The image of the main character has also been significantly changed. Carmen in the opera is the embodiment of female beauty and charm, passionate love of freedom and courage. Cunning, thieving efficiency - these features of Carmen in Merimee's novella were eliminated in the opera. Bizet ennobled the character of his heroine, emphasizing the directness of her feelings and independence of actions. And finally, expanding the scope of the narrative, the authors of the opera introduced colorful folk scenes. The life of a temperamental, motley crowd under the burning sun of the south, the romantic figures of gypsies and smugglers, the elevated atmosphere of a bullfight with particular poignancy and brightness emphasize in the opera the original characters of Carmen, Jose, Michaela and Escamillo, and the drama of their destinies. These scenes gave the tragic plot an optimistic sound.

The premiere of "Carmen" took place in Paris on March 3, 1875 and was not a success. The author was accused of immorality: the free expression of the feelings of the heroes - ordinary people from the people - was abhorrent to sanctimonious bourgeois morality. One of the first among Bizet’s great contemporaries to appreciate the music of “Carmen” was P. I. Tchaikovsky. “Bizet’s opera,” he wrote, “is a masterpiece, one of those few things that are destined to reflect to the greatest extent the musical aspirations of an entire era. In ten years, Carmen will be the most popular opera in the world.” These words turned out to be prophetic. If in 1876 “Carmen” disappeared for a long time from the repertoire of Parisian theaters, then abroad - in Vienna (1875), St. Petersburg (1878) and many other European cities, its success was truly triumphant. In Paris, the production of Carmen was revived in 1883 in the edition of E. Guiraud (1837-1892), who replaced spoken dialogue with recitatives and added ballet scenes at the opera's finale, taking music from other works by Bizet.

Music

"Carmen" is one of the masterpieces of opera. Music, full of life and light, vividly affirms the freedom of the human person. The drama of clashes and conflicts is deeply truthful. The characters of the opera are depicted juicily, temperamentally, in all the psychological complexity of their characters. The national Spanish flavor and setting of the drama were recreated with great skill. The strength of Carmen's optimism lies in the inextricable internal connection between the heroes and the people.

The opera opens with an overture, which juxtaposes images of sunny Spain, jubilant folk festivals and the tragic fate of Carmen.

The beginning of the first act is serene and clear. The opening folk scenes are rich in movement and color: a choir of soldiers, a fervent march of boys. A choir of girls, factory workers, prepares for Carmen's exit. Her habanera “Love has wings like a bird” is close to the proud Spanish dance songs. The duet between Michaela and Jose “I Remember a Day in the Mountains” is designed in idyllic tones. The song about a formidable husband, the seguidilla and the duet of Carmen and Jose create a multifaceted image of a freedom-loving gypsy.

The second act, like all subsequent ones, is preceded by a colorful symphonic intermission. The gypsy dance that opens the act is full of fiery fun. Escamillo’s energetic, courageous march “Toast, friends, I accept yours” (his music was first heard in the overture) outlines the brave hero of the bullfight. The smugglers' quintet (featuring Carmen) "If we need to deceive" is kept in a light, lively character. The duet of Carmen and Jose is the most important scene of the opera, a clash of two human wills, characters, views on life and love. The embodiment of the heroes’ life ideals is Jose’s “aria about a flower” (“You see how sacredly I preserve the flower that you gave me”) and Carmen’s song, her hymn to freedom “There, there, to my native mountains.” If the characterization of Jose is dominated by the element of song-romance, emphasizing his spiritual softness, then the rebellious spirit of Carmen is revealed in the temperamental rhythms and melodies of Spanish folk songs. The act ends with the melody of the freedom-loving song of Carmen, heard by the choir.

The symphonic intermission for the third act paints a poetic picture of nature - the peace and quiet of the slumbering mountains. A gloomy, wary sextet with a chorus-march of smugglers “Bolder, bolder on the road, friends, go!” - and another chorus - of a lively and cheerful character, “The customs soldier is not afraid of us”, outline the world in which Carmen and Jose live. The central episode of the third act is the fortune telling scene (terzetto); the cheerful chirping of Frasquita and Mercedes sets off the mournful reflection of Carmen, who appears here in an unusual, tragic form. Michaela's lyrical aria “I assure myself in vain” takes on a decisive character. José's meeting with Escamillo creates a dramatic build-up and sets up the climax of the third act (Carmen's breakup with José). The finale of the act conveys the ominous alertness and tension of the situation, foreshadowing the inevitable denouement.

The symphonic intermission for the fourth act, in keeping with the character of the Spanish folk dance "polo", is one of the remarkable examples of Bizet's penetration into the spirit of folk music. The act breaks down into two halves: the pictures of a bright, sparkling national holiday are contrasted with the personal drama of the characters; life's contrasts are extremely exposed. The action opens with a lively folk scene, reminiscent of the beginning of the opera in its bright and sunny coloring. A solemn heroic march and choir accompany Escamillo's triumphal procession. The melody of the duet “If you love, Carmen” by Escamillo and Carmen flows widely and freely, full of hot feelings. In the second half of the act, especially in the duet between Jose and Carmen, the dramatic tension quickly increases. Throughout the entire scene, the contrast between popular rejoicing and personal drama intensifies. Four times the intruding festive cheers of the crowd intensify the duel between the heroes, leading to a tragic outcome.

M. Druskin

One of the most outstanding works of world opera classics. After the scandalous premiere, which ended in failure, already in the autumn of the same year the Vienna premiere (for which Guiraud wrote recitatives instead of spoken dialogues) was a great success, which the composer was not destined to see (Bizet died suddenly in the summer of 1875). Recently, a number of theaters have returned to the “talk” version. The Russian premiere took place in 1885 (Mariinsky Theatre, conductor Napravnik, as Carmen Slavina). Carmen has enjoyed unprecedented popularity for over 100 years. Her incendiary melodies: habanera “L'amour est oiseau rebelle”, couplets of the bullfighter “Votre toast”, heartfelt lyrical episodes (José’s aria “with a flower” from 2 d., etc.) are heard as well as the most popular folk and pop songs . In 1967, Karajan staged the film-opera “Carmen” with the participation of Bumbry, Vickers, and Freni. A new version of the opera was filmed in 1983 by F. Rosi (director Maazel, soloists Migenes-Johnson, Domingo, etc.). Among the productions of recent years, we note the 1996 performances at the Metropolitan Opera (Graves in the title role) and at the Mariinsky Theater (director Gergiev).

Discography: CD (with recitatives) - RCA Victor. Dir. Karajan, Carmen (L. Price), Jose (Corelli), Michaela (Freni), Escamillo (Merrill) - Deutsche Grammophon. Dir. Levine, Carmen (Baltsa), Jose (Carreras), Michaela (Mitchell), Escamillo (Ramie) - CD (with dialogues) - Philips. Dir. Ozawa, Carmen (Norman), Jose (Shikoff), Michaela (Freni), Escamillo (Estes).

E. Tsodokov

Bizet became interested in the plot of “Carmen” while working on “Djamil”, and in 1873-1874 he began to work on finishing the libretto and writing music. On March 3, 1875, the premiere of the “Comic Opera” took place at the theater; three months later, on June 3, Bizet suddenly died, without having time to complete a number of his other works. (Among them is the heroic opera “Cid” (in a later version - “Don Rodrigo”) based on the tragedy by de Castro. The music was fully composed, but not recorded (only sketches of the vocal parts have survived) - Bizet played it to his friends. Possessing a rare memory, Bizet, like Mozart, recorded his compositions on music paper only when the deadline for their performance approached.)

His premature death was probably hastened by the social scandal that erupted around Carmen. The jaded bourgeoisie - ordinary visitors to boxes and stalls - found the plot of the opera obscene, and the music too serious and complex. Press reviews were almost unanimously negative. At the beginning of the next year, 1876, “Carmen” disappeared for a long time from the repertoire of Parisian theaters, and at the same time its triumphant success began on the theatrical stage of foreign countries (first performance in Russia took place in 1878). In Paris, the production of Carmen was resumed only in 1883. After her transition to the Grand Opera stage, Ernest Guiraud replaced the original dialogues with recitatives and added ballet scenes in the last act (borrowed from the music of La Belle de Perth and La Les d'Arlesiennes). From now on, “Carmen” deservedly took one of the first places in the repertoire of the world musical theater.

But long before that, Tchaikovsky noted its outstanding artistic value. Already in 1875 he had the clavier “Carmen”, at the beginning of 1876 he saw it on the stage of the Parisian “Opera-Comique”. In 1877, Tchaikovsky wrote: “...I learned it by heart, all from beginning to end.” And in 1880 he stated: “In my opinion, this is in the full sense of the word a masterpiece, that is, one of those few things that are destined to reflect to the greatest extent the musical aspirations of an entire era.” And then he prophetically predicted: “I am convinced that in ten years Carmen will be the most popular opera in the world...”

The plot of the opera is borrowed from Prosper Merimee’s short story “Carmen” (1847), or more precisely, from its third chapter, which contains Jose’s story about the drama of his life. Experienced masters of theatrical dramaturgy, Meliac and Halevi, created an excellent, scenically effective libretto, the dramatic situations and text of which clearly outline the characters of the characters in the play. But during the development of this plot under the leadership of Bizet, significantly important new points were introduced.

First of all, the image of Jose (in Spanish pronunciation - Jose) has changed. Merimee is a famous bandit who has many crimes on his conscience. He is stern, proud, gloomy and somehow reminded the writer of “Milton’s Satan.” The image created by Merimee is unusual and has a more conventionally “operatic” character than is the case in Bizet’s opera itself. In the composer's interpretation, Jose is humane, simple, and devoid of any individual exceptionalism. Bizet did not describe a fearless, strong-willed, romantically lonely hero, but his contemporary, an honest, straightforward, somewhat weak-willed man, dreaming of cozy and calm happiness, but due to fatal circumstances, torn from the usual conditions of existence. This was the reason for his personal drama.

A radical rethinking of Jose's image brought new aspects to his relationship with Carmen.

And this image became different. But the changes here went in the opposite direction - everything connected with the depiction of Carmen’s dexterity, cunning, and thieving efficiency was removed, in other words, everything that belittled this image. In Bizet's opera he is elevated, made nobler and, again, more humane, and even endowed with traits of tragic greatness in the end. Without breaking with the original source, the authors of the opera more actively emphasized the love of freedom and the straightforwardness of the heroine’s courageous character. They brought the essence of this image closer to that romantic interpretation of “gypsy” as a synonym for love of freedom, independence in personal relationships, opposed to the hypocrisy of bourgeois morality, which found its most vivid embodiment in Pushkin’s “Gypsies.”

But most importantly - music Bizet endowed Carmen with features folk character. In order for the composer to achieve this, the librettists changed the scene of the action - they took it to the squares and vast expanses of the mountains, populating them with masses of people, full of lively and active joy, in constant movement. Life began to boil vigorously around the opera's heroes, and their connections with reality - especially Carmen's - became stronger and more multifaceted.

The introduction of folk scenes, which occupy an important place in the opera, gave a different light, a different flavor to Merimee’s novella, and, moreover, a different ideological orientation: the drama, dark in color, acquired the character of an optimistic tragedy. The image of the heroine is also permeated with the power of love of life radiated from folk scenes. The glorification of open, simple and strong feelings, a direct, impulsive attitude towards life is the main feature of Bizet's opera, its high ethical value. “Carmen,” wrote Romain Rolland, “is all outside, all life, all light, without shadows, without understatement.”

Concentrating the action, compressing it, freeing it from side intrigues, but at the same time expanding To enhance the role of the people, the authors of the opera saturated the drama with vital contrasts and gave its development energy and dynamics. In contrast to Jose, the bullfighter Escamillo acquired a strong-willed, heroic, albeit somewhat external characteristic, and the antithesis to Carmen was the affectionate and gentle Micaela - an image created by the librettists on the basis of a casually thrown phrase by the writer about “a girl in a blue skirt and with blond braids.” This antithesis also has a strong literary tradition. One can recall the contrast between the images of Clelia and the Duchess from Stendhal’s “The Parma Monastery” or in his novel “The Red and the Black” - Madame Renal and Mathilde de Lamole. In the specific context of the opera, this antithesis helped to show Jose’s spiritual drama and his painful search for happiness in a multifaceted way.

Bizet's music further emphasized the contrast and dynamics of dramatic development: it is characterized by liveliness, brilliance, and variety of movements. These qualities, typical of the composer, perfectly corresponded to the depiction of the action of the Spanish plot. Only in rare cases, using folk melodies, did Bizet aptly convey the Spanish national flavor. This was not the first time he turned to it: the symphony-cantata “Vasco da Gama” (1859), an arrangement of six Spanish songs (1867), gypsy songs and dances in “The Perth Beauty” (1867) - and the features of gypsy music are included as an important element in folklore of the southern regions of Spain - and, finally, the unfinished opera "Cid" (1873-1874) - these are the stages of Bizet's creative quest to discover his method of reproducing the Spanish national spirit. The role of the “Arlesienne” is also significant, since the folklore of Provence, as well as its language, is partly close to Spanish.

Only three genuine folk melodies are used in the opera's score: this is the habanera of Act I, the music of which gives a free adaptation of a song of Cuban origin, published in 1864 in one of the collections (see examples 194 a, b); polo (Spanish folk dance) from the orchestral introduction to Act IV - its melody is inspired by the song of the famous Spanish singer M. Garcia (see example 283 V) and, finally, the melody of Carmen Zuniga’s daring response in Act I (see example 195), for which the librettists used the text of Zemfira’s song from Pushkin’s “Gypsies” translated by P. Merimee.

Along with such “quotations,” Bizet interspersed into the musical fabric individual turns and development techniques - melodic and rhythmic, characteristic of Spanish music. These are the methods of cadence highlighting the V stage - the mentioned intermission ends on the dominant; comparisons within the framework of the seven-step mode of major and minor tetrachords, and the final sound of the first of them coincides with the initial sound of the second, which occurs both in the aforementioned intermission and in the seguidilla of Act I.

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