Plot and Creation: Carmen

The Novella Carmen by Prosper Mérimée and the Poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin

Like many opera libretti, Bizet’s Carmen derives from multiple sources. Perhaps the most obvious (and most widely credited) is French writer Prosper Mérimée’s novella Carmen. Mérimée shared in the mid-19th-century French fascination with exotic, bizarre, and sordid subjects. All these qualities are on ample display in Carmen, which was originally published in 1845 in the travel journal La Revue des deux Mondes, without any indication that this story of uncontrollable desire, jealousy, and murder among the Romani in Spain was a fictional account. Such a deception would not have been unheard of from Mérimée, who as a young writer had delighted in literary hoaxes, passing off his own writings as mere translations of foreign works.

The work proceeds in three sections. In the first, the narrator is touring Andalusia with a guide when they happen upon Don José Navarro, a notorious bandit. In the second, he meets a Gitana (another name for Romani in Spain) named Carmen who tells his fortune and steals his watch. Later, the author learns that Don José is to be executed and travels to meet him in prison. In the final section, Don José recounts his life story, detailing how we went from Basque nobility to an outlaw, ultimately joining Carmen’s band of smugglers, killing her husband, marrying her, and then murdering a young picador in a jealous rage before stabbing Carmen to death and turning himself in. In Bizet’s opera, the character Micaëla—a foil for Carmen representing the life Don José leaves behind—is an invention of librettists Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, as are Carmen’s companions Mercédès and Frasquita.

The following year, Carmen was reprinted as a standalone volume, this time with an added fourth section containing the author’s scholarly, though largely false, remarks about Romani history, culture, and language. “Their complexion is very dark, always darker than that of the peoples among whom they live,” Mérimée writes. “One can compare their look to nothing save that of a wild beast.” Elsewhere he describes Romani people as “crafty” and “insolent,” whose “uncleanliness” is “beyond belief,” in addition to noting their supposed predilections for secrecy, fortune telling, and provocative dancing.  

Mérimée himself was taken by Pushkin’s poem, having read it sometime before 1840 and ultimately publishing a French prose translation in 1852. And although Bizet’s opera derives its title from Mérimée’s text, key aspects of the work are found in both Carmen and The Gypsies. The basic plot of the opera, some suggest, is taken from Pushkin, and other scholars note that Meilhac and Halévy likely based their libretto more directly on Mérimée’s translation of Pushkin than on his own novella.

Indeed, several lines and scenes appear nearly verbatim in The Gypsies and the opera but have no corresponding place in the novella. The famous “Tra la la” aria from Act I has its analogue in a scene where Zemfira, to Aleko’s disgust, sings of a secret lover she will never reveal. The line “Coupe-moi, brûle-moi” (“cut me, burn me”) and others from the aria come directly from Mérimée’s translation of Pushkin. In addition, the famous metaphor expressed in Carmen’s habanera, “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle” (“Love is a rebellious bird”), approximates the Old Man’s counsel to Aleko: “Youth is freer than a bird; / Who can restrain love?” And, finally, Carmen’s final declaration of love for Escamillo (“I love him! And even in the face of death, with my dying breath, I shall love him!”) reflects the conclusion of Pushkin’s poem, when Zemfira exclaims, “I’ll die loving.”

Act I

A contemporary American industrial town

Outside a cigarette factory, a group of soldiers guarding the border comment on the passers-by. A newly arrived young woman, Micaëla, asks for a soldier named Don José. Moralès, his colleague, tells her that José will return when the next shift begins. When the shift change—led by Zuniga, their commanding officer—occurs and José returns, Moralès tells José that Micaëla has been looking for him. The factory bell rings, and the men gather to watch the female workers—especially their favorite, Carmen. She tells the men that love is free and obeys no rules. Only one man ignores her: José. Carmen throws a flower at him, and the women go back to work. José picks up the flower and hides it when Micaëla returns. She brings a letter from José’s mother, who lives in the countryside. After Micaëla leaves, José reads the letter. He is about to throw away the flower when a fight erupts inside the factory between Carmen and another woman. Zuniga sends José to remove Carmen, but she refuses to answer Zuniga’s questions, and José is ordered to lock her up. Left alone with him, she entices José with suggestions of a rendezvous at a private party outside of town. Mesmerized, he agrees to let her get away. As he brings her to the lockup, José lets Carmen escape, and he is arrested.

Act II

Carmen and her friends Frasquita and Mercédès entertain a group of locals who have gathered to party in the cargo hold of a tractor-trailer truck. Zuniga tells Carmen that José has just been released from custody. Escamillo, a rodeo star, drives along the freeway with his entourage. The vehicles stop, and people spill out onto the road, listening to Escamillo boasting about his profession. He flirts with Carmen, who tells him that she is involved with someone else. Most of the partygoers depart with Escamillo, leaving Carmen and her friends with the smugglers Dancaïre and Remendado, who try to convince the women to get involved in their smuggling scheme. Frasquita and Mercédès are willing to help, but Carmen refuses because she is in love. Dancaïre and Remendado withdraw as José approaches. Carmen and José are left at a deserted gas station. Carmen arouses his jealousy by telling him how she danced for Zuniga. She dances for José now, but when a signal sounds in the distance, he says that he must return to duty. Carmen mocks him. To prove his love, José shows her the flower that she threw at him when they met and confesses how its scent helped him hold onto hope while he was in lockup. She is unimpressed: If he really loved her, he would quit the army and join her in a life of freedom in the mountains. José refuses, and Carmen tells him to leave. Zuniga arrives at the gas station looking for Carmen, and in a jealous rage, José fights him. The smugglers return and disarm Zuniga. José, having assaulted his superior officer, now has no choice but to join them.

Act III

The truck, last seen flying down the highway, has crashed at a high mountain pass. Smoke rises from the shattered vehicle, and women are climbing out of the back of the truck as smugglers start to remove large boxes of guns to bring them across the border. Carmen and José quarrel, and she admits that her love is fading and advises him to return to live with his mother. When Frasquita and Mercédès turn the cards to tell their fortunes, they foresee love and money for themselves, but Carmen’s cards spell death—for her and for José. Micaëla appears, frightened by the remote location and afraid to meet the woman who has turned José into a criminal. She hides when a shot rings out—José has fired at an intruder, who turns out to be Escamillo. He tells José that he has come to find Carmen, and the two men fight. The smugglers separate them, and Escamillo invites everyone, particularly Carmen, to see him compete in the next rodeo. When he has left, Micaëla emerges and begs José to return home. He agrees when he learns that his mother is dying, but before he leaves, he warns Carmen that they will meet again.

Acv IV

In a vast rodeo arena, a vibrant and noisy crowd gathers. Carmen arrives on Escamillo’s arm, surrounded by his rodeo entourage. Frasquita and Mercédès come to warn her that José is nearby and can be seen watching her. Unafraid, she waits outside the entrance as the crowds enter the arena. José appears and begs Carmen to forget the past and start a new life with him. She calmly tells him that their affair is over: She was born free and will live free until she dies. The crowd is heard cheering Escamillo. José persists in trying to win Carmen back. She takes off his ring and throws it at his feet before heading for the arena. José stabs her to death.

Director Carrie Cracknell notes the following about the character portrayals in this production of Carmen: “The characters in the opera are migrants, smugglers, transitory people. We have moved away from depicting them as Romani and won’t use this word in the surtitles. Our focus in the production is on economically disempowered people and its intersection with gender.”

1838
Georges Bizet is born on October 25 in Bougival, near Paris. His parents are both amateur musicians, and his mother is his earliest musical influence.   

1845
Prosper Mérimée writes Carmen, the novella that later forms the basis for Bizet’s opera. It reflects Mérimée’s abiding interest in exotic locales and fierce passions.  

1848
Bizet enrolls in the Paris Conservatoire, where he receives a rigorous musical education.

1853
Bizet begins composition studies with Fromental Halévy, a member of a prominent artistic family. 1855 At age 17, Bizet composes his first opera, La Maison du Docteur (The Doctor’s House).

1856
Bizet completes his second opera, Le Docteur Miracle, to a libretto by Léon Battu and Ludovic Halévy (the nephew of his composition professor).

1857
Bizet wins the prestigious Prix de Rome, the annual competition hosted by the Academie des Beaux-Arts. It provides him with funding to study in Italy for three years, during which he acquaints himself with Italian music and composes an opera in Italian, Don Procopio.

1863
Financed by a commission from the Theatre Lyrique, Bizet composes Les Pêcheurs de Perles (The Pearl Fishers). It is the first of his full-length operas to be staged. While it receives 18 performances and strong praise from Hector Berlioz, it is not staged again until 1886. The press derides it, both for its libretto, which they consider absurd, as well as for its music, which they call noisy and offensive.

1866
Bizet receives a commission to compose another opera for the Theatre Lyrique. The result is La Jolie Fille de Perth (The Fair Maid of Perth), based on the novel by Sir Walter Scott. While better reviewed by the press, it too achieves only 18 performances, largely due to financial difficulties at the Théâtre Lyrique.

1870
The Franco-Prussian War breaks out in July. Bizet enlists in the French National Guard along with several other well-known composers (Jules Massenet and Camille Saint-Saëns among them) and endures the Siege of Paris throughout the fall.

1871
After an armistice is signed in January, a violent uprising grips Paris, and Bizet and his wife escape to northern France. Bizet and other composers return to Paris in June with the goal of revitalizing music composition. His commissions become more regular, though he is never far from misfortune, financial hardship, and disappointment.

1873
At the invitation of the directors of the Opera-Comique, Bizet agrees to work with librettists Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy to produce a new opera. Bizet proposes a work based on Mérimée’s Carmen. The project moves forward despite the theater’s hesitancy to treat violent death and overt sexuality on its stage. In the same year, Bizet is invited to compose a new work for the Opera, Paris’s leading theater and long the seat of traditional French grand opera. He works quickly and by October has a complete draft of Don Rodrigue. On October 28, before the work can be staged, the theater burns down, and the opera is never revisited.

1874
Rehearsals begin for Carmen. Bizet withstands objections from not only the orchestra and members of the chorus (who are required to smoke and fight on stage) but also the theater’s directors, who consider the final onstage murder too extreme for the family audiences of the Opéra-Comique.

1875
Carmen receives its premiere at the Opéra-Comique on March 3. The press is predictably outraged, but the opera continues for 47 additional performances.

1875
After suffering a series of heart attacks, Bizet dies on June 3 at only 36 years old. He is buried at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.