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The most popular of all operas

“People claim that I am obscure, complicated, boring, more hampered by technical skill than illuminated by inspiration,” Bizet complained in 1874. “Well, this time,” he asserted, “I’ve written a work that is all clarity and vivacity, full of colour and melody. It will be entertaining…” He was talking about Carmen and he was right. Unfortunately, the audience at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, where Carmen was first performed on 3 March 1875, did not see it that way. It was not a total disaster - it had an initial run of as many as 45 performances - but the theatre management that had commissioned and staged the work never even recovered its costs. After three more performances early in 1876 Carmen was withdrawn from the Opéra-Comique repertoire and and was not seen again in Paris until 1883. By then it had become a world-wide sensation.

The most tragic aspect of the failure of Carmen in Paris in 1875 was that, a few hours after the 33rd performance, the composer diedwith every reason to believe that once again - as with his all his other operas, including The Pearl Fishers and The Fair Maid of Perth - he had missed out on achieving a popular success. And he had no one to blame but himself. He approved of Camille Du Locle’s production and the sets and costumes as well. He was apparently happy with the contribution of the chorus and orchestra, in spite of early protests from both ensembles that the score was unperformable. Above all, he was thrilled by his Carmen, Célestine Galli-Marié, at the head of a cast at least adequate in all the major roles except that of Don José.

The basic problem was that he had issued a challenge to the conventions of the Opéra-Comique when that conservative institution was not ready for it either musically or morally. When Adolph de Leuven, one of the joint directors of the theatre, had heard that Bizet proposed to write an opera based on Prosper Mérimée’s story of Spanish passion and banditry he was horrified. “Carmen!” he exclaimed. “Mérimée’s Carmen?” Isn’t she killed by her lover? And that background of thieves, gypsies, cigarette women! At the Opéra-Comique, a family theatre… You will frighten off our audience. It’s impossible.”

De Leuven’s objections did not prevail - in fact, he resigned, leaving Du Locle in sole charge - but they did have an influence on the content of the work as it took shape. Bizet’s highly expert librettists, Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, undertook to develop the rôle of Micaëla, the bravely virtuous country girl whose faith in family values would counter-balance the immorality of the gypsy Carmen. They also introduced comedy characters into the band of smugglers and created an extrovert popular hero-figure in the bullfighter Escamillo to offset the withdrawn personality of Don José. But this was not enough. An opéra-comique at this time did not have to be comic but, while a sexually predatory heroine was bad enough, murder was even worse. Death did not happen on the stage of the Opéra-Comique. The reactions of the first-night audience, which got cooler and cooler act by act, confirmed De Leuven’s worst fears.

The critics too, or some of them, attacked Carmen for its immorality and the hip-swaying sensuality of its heroine. A few were perceptive enough to apreciate the quality of the score but others, like the general public, failed to understand it. Although the composer had respected the basic requirement of the Opéra-Comique - that the arias and ensembles should be connected by spoken dialogue rather than by recitative - he had by far exceeded its tolerance as far as harmonic and other innovations were concerned. Even Du Locle had declared the music “Cochin-Chinese and utterly incomprehensible.” To the present-day audience, which loves Carmen for its inexhaustible tunefulness and its irresistible Spanish colouring, such incomprehension seems absurd.

Indeed, it must have seemed absurd even as early as October 1875 in Vienna where - in a “grand-opera” version with the dialogue replaced by recitatives by the late composer’s friend Ernest Guiraud - Carmen enjoyed an enormous success. Brahms went to see it twenty times and even Wagner admired it. Bizet’s last opera was already on its way to becoming the most popular of all works of its kind.

Tonight’s performance is based on the grand-opera version with Guiraud’s recitatives reduced to a minimum.