three hateful figures
by Douglas Messerli
Georges Bizet (composer), Ludovic Halévy and Henri Meilhac (libretto,
based on the novella by Prosper Mérimée), Richard Eyre
(director), Gary Halvorson (film director) Carmen
/ 2019 [Metropolitan Opera live-HD film]
Over numerous years I have come to know almost
every aria in and the plot of Carmen,
but oddly enough I had never seen a performance of the popular opera. So, the
announcement by the Metropolitan Opera that this year they were including their
tragic tale of the gypsy Carmen and the soldier Don José in their live HD
broadcast, led Howard and me to buy tickets. And this production was such an
excellent one, that feel that perhaps I need not see another.
Yes, Carmen (Clémentine Margaine in this production) is a truly independent spirit, who will have love only on her terms, as she expresses it in her Act 1 "Habanera.” If in a society where men generally made the decision about whom they loved, the cigarette girl, given her beauty, is able to make her own choices of lovers and to declare that her shifting interests may result in heart-break or even death for her former lovers. In short, she recognizes herself as a dangerous siren who spends a great deal of energy in playing a kind of dominating whore, spinning webs around men only to leave them entrapped when she moves on to her next lover. And all those around her, apparently, know her pattern and steer clear of her sexual enticements. Only outsiders such as Don José (Roberto Alagna) and the toreador, Escamillo (Alexander Vinogradov) might allow themselves to fall for her charms.
It
is precisely her independence and willfulness that attracts men to her. In a
society of feminine passivity, Carmen stands out in her alluring masculine-like
stance. One might even observe that she symbolically stands for soldiers and
toreadors alike—both groups of which, because of their historical association
with their own sex and their colorful costumes, have long been the focus of gay
intrigue—as a kind of acceptable drag incarnation of their male colleagues. *
Even if Carmen is currently smitten by him, we recognize that she will eventually perceive his true cowardice and will leave him as well. Fortunately, we never discover what might have occurred in their relationship, but it might be interesting as a separate work to imagine what their relationship would have been and how it might have ended—surely, once more, in violence.
The true hero of this opera is Micaéla, who truly enters the lion’s den
of the smuggler’s hideout, trembling with fear, not only for her encounter with
the suspicious males, but for having to encounter her nemesis Carmen. Yet only
she is able, temporarily at least, of weaning Don José away from this world so
that he might attend to his mother’s impending death.
No matter how you might view conventional behavior, you have to be
shocked by the trio of horrific beings at the center of this story. Opera is
filled with hateful figures, criminals, rapists, and many, many murderers. But
these three rather shady figures starring in a single work may be a kind of
record.
They
all may be proclaiming love, but the results of that love make you shudder.
Even Don Giovanni, the lecherous count also roaming the Seville streets, seems
almost saintly in comparison.
As the gentle and mostly unjudgmental Howard
said, upon leaving the theater, “these are not such nice people.”
I
was enchanted by the performances and music, even if it didn’t make me want to
abandon my life and run into the mountains.
*It’s fascinating, simply as a coincidental
piece of gay gossip, that Marcel Proust, after Bizet’s death, befriended the
composer’s wife and son, upon whom he
based two of the central figures in his masterpiece, Remembrance of Things Past. The author of the original Carmen,
Prosper Mérimée, although having occasional affairs and long correspondence
with women, never married and lived most of his life with his mother. He did
have a one-night stand, apparently, with George Sand (not impressed with his
sexual prowess), who might almost be portrayed as a kind of Carmen, a
strong-willed, talented seductress of many powerful men.
Los Angeles, February 6, 2019
Reprinted from USTheater, Opera, and Performance (February 2019).
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