Carmen Suite No.2

Marche des contrebandiers

Habanera

Nocturne

Chanson du toréador

La garde montante

Danse bohème

Bizet himself never wrote a Carmen Suite. For one thing, he didn’t have the opportunity: he died only a year after completing the opera and much of the time that was left to him was taken up by the problems of getting the work staged and revising the score to improve its dramatic effectiveness. For another thing, although the original production was not the complete failure it is traditionally claimed to have been - the composer’s death coincided with the 33rd of a run of 45 performances at the Opéra-Comique in Paris - he could have had no idea of how enormously successful Carmen would eventually become and what demand there would be for the more popular numbers in arrangements of all kinds.

Since today’s selection, the second of two suites usefully compiled for the concert hall by Fritz Hoffmann, does not present the six numbers in the order in which they appear in the opera, there is little point in attempting to follow the story line. It opens, in fact, at the beginning of the third act as a band of smugglers - including a reluctant Don José who, seduced by Carmen, has deserted the army to follow her - cautiously marches through a dangerous mountain pass with its load of contraband.

One of the most familiar tunes in the Carmen, the Habanera from the first act, is not Bizet’s own. He adapted it from a song called El arreglito which he thought was a folk song but which was actually written by the popular Spanish composer Sebastián Iradier. It was a stroke of genius on Bizet’s part, however, to put the habanera rhythm to it and to present it as a characteristically provocative song and dance for Carmen to taunt her admirers in the first act of the opera: “If I love you,” she sings, “take care!” Unfortunately for José, he did not heed her warning. If he had taken care he would now be safely married to Micaela, his mother’s choice of a bride for him and a model of honesty and fidelity. She is, however, no wimp. In the movement headed Nocturne - which is based on her third-act aria “Je dis que rien ne m’épouvante,” with the vocal line transferred to solo violin - she has bravely come to seek out José in the mountains and take him home to his dying mother.

The Chanson du Toréador, one of the most famous arias in all opera, represents the robustly confident character of Escamillo, popular bullfighter hero and rival to Don José for the love of Carmen. The ebullient vocal line of both parts of the aria, “Votre toast, je peux vous le rendre” and “Toréador en garde,” is awarded here to a solo cornet. The cornet is also featured, along with two piccolos, in La Garde montante, the delightful episode in the first act where the children of Seville play at soldiers as the real soldiers change guard. Definitely not for children,

the sexy Danse bohème - the gypsy dance “Les tringles des sistres tintaient” from the second act - is a brilliant example the entertainment put on by Carmen and her companions in the smoky, manzanilla-soaked atmosphere of Lillas Pastia’s tavern on the ramparts of the city. It is the kind of thing that, it turns out, Don José just cannot resist.

Gerald Larner ©2006