Carmen: Habanera and Seguidilla

Carmen was not a great success when it was first performed, just a few months before Bizet’s death, in Paris in 1875. By the time Mascagni came to write Cavalleria rusticana, however, less than twenty-five years later, it was so well established in the repertoire that the Italian composer modelled some aspects of his own work on Bizet’s masterpiece. Carmen is set in Seville, of course, rather than Sicily but it too culminates in a lover’s bloody revenge - although in this case the insanely jealous Don José does not kill his rival, the bull fighter Escamillo, but the object of his hopeless devotion, Carmen herself.

The Habanera and the Seguidilla are the two dances by means of which Carmen attracts and captivates Don José in the first place. Although the first of those tunes is not Bizet’s own, it was a stroke of genius on his part to put the habanera rhythm to it and to present it as a characteristically provocative dance for Carmen to introduce herself in the first act of the opera. The Seguidilla is the seductive number by means of which she persuades Corporal Don José into letting her go after she has been arrested for causing a disturbance in the cigarette factory. With the promise of a good time to come afterwards he cannot resist.