“Bullfighting is the only art form that both represents something and is that thing at the same time: the matador’s elegant immobility in the face of the bull not only represents man’s defiance of death, it is a man defying death, and there are women who do it too.”[i]
In Bizet’s classic opera Carmen, the metaphor of the life defying death of the bull ring meets the Hemingway-esque use of the bullfight to represent the destructiveness of sex at the core of the title character’s relationship with Don Jose. In each and every encounter with each torero involves seduction, manipulation, maneuvering, and penetration.
In Bizet’s Carmen who is the toreador and who is the bull?
In Bizet’s masterpiece, both lose.
Orson Welles pondered the art of bullfighting’
“What is the essence of this art? That the man carry himself with grace and that he moves the bull slowly and with a certain majesty. That is, he must allow the inherent quality of the bull to manifest itself.”
The distinguished British historian has identified two basic views of the opera Carmen:
“[i]There is a “soft” Carmen (lower-and upper-middle class, romantic) and a “hard Carmen (realistic, derived from Merimee and Nietzsche’s admiration. Either variant can be justified on the basis of the score. The listener who wants to enjoy his Carmen in a sentimental vein pays only fleeting attention to the fate motif and concentrates on the duet of Don Jose and Micaela. Then other party points to Carmen’s card monologue, the duel between Don Jose and Escamillo, and the “hatred to death” of the sexes in the last confrontation.”
The great stage operatic character named Carmen began her life in an insignificant novel:
“I heard some bystanders say, ‘Here comes the gitanella!’ Then I lifted up my eyes, and I saw her! It was that very Carmen you know. She was wearing a very short skirt, below which her white silk stockings—with more than one hole in them—and her dainty red morocco shoes, fastened with flame-colored ribbons, were clearly seen. She had thrown her mantilla back, to show her shoulders, and a great bunch of acacia that was thrust into her chemise. She had another acacia blossom in the corner of her mouth, and she walked along, swaying her hips, like a filly from the Cordova stud farm. In my country anybody who had seen a woman dressed in that fashion would have crossed himself…She had an answer for each and all, with her hand on her hip, as bold as the thorough gipsy she was. …She, like all women and cats, who won’t come if you call them, and do come if you don’t call them, stopped short in front of me, and spoke to me.
With those words the world was introduced to Carmen, the woman Prosper Merimee’s obscure novel, made immortal by Georges Bizet, second only to La Boheme among the world’s most popular operas.
Almost immediately creative theater artists began to change the narrative.
The current Metropolitan Opera’s production is a prime example.
The director makes the fatal mistake of assuming the same cultural identity among all Spanish -speaking lands. On the border with the United States in the twentieth century , the Spanish-speakers’ Tex Mex culture is part of what is known as the Americas, a land of both indigenous people and imported European colonists. On the other hand, the Spanish characters in the nineteenth century world of Bizet/Meilhac/Halevy/Merimee are European. Europe is a land of great historic empires castle armadas and armies.
The libretto and the music are marinated in the Europe of nineteenth century Seville. Director Carrie Cracknell creates a setting and envisions characters of the twenty-first century Americas. The combination doesn’t work.
American rodeo is not any more the counterpart of Spanish Bull fighting than British cricket would be the counterpart to American baseball. Spanish bullfighting, as recognized by Hemmingway and Orson Welles, is a complex ritual of civic and religious importance. The grand procession into the arena involved civic leader and clergy, who would bless the participants before the event began. The rodeo was pure entertainment. To have the circus clowns cavort while Bizet’s grand processional music played was an offensive display of cultural ignorance.
The smuggling across the border with Mexico is not primarily of guns, as Ms. Cracknell’s production shows. Instead the cargo trafficked are human beings and dangerous drugs. That fact missed Ms. Cracknell’s “research”. Also, no munitions factory in the United States is guarded by U.S. soldiers, another fact of which Ms. Cracknell is ignorant. Nor do they patrol the border. That task is given to special border guards, who do not have the authority to arrest squabbling factory workers, despite what Ms. Cracknell would have us believe.
On the positive side, the conductor, Daniele Rustioni, enters the orchestra pit in the traditional white tie and tails to lead an orchestra dressed more casually. Thus we have a visual image of the clash of cultures we will soon see as Cracknell’s production unfurls. Conductor Rustioni’s brilliant interpretation of the score -intelligent, precise, passionate, at times seeming like one is hearing the score for the first time. His Bizet love often hides the errors Cracknell commits.
The singers’ brilliance as vocalists and actors also help legitimize Ms. Cracknell’s misguided interpretation. Though the character choices we witness were those of Ms. Cracknell we see performers comply with the director’s wishes with belief, conviction, and seeming spontaneity. Aigul Akhmeetshina, the Russian soprano, makes a triumphant debut, with a voice for the ages. So clarion, yet supple is her voice, that we should expect to see her career unfold in the world’s great opera houses. She may be the Anna Netrebko of the future. Her Don Jose is one of the world’s favorite tenors- Piotr Beczala, whose innate charm and dramatic skill wins every audience immediately. Mr. Gelb seems to cast Mr. Beczala in dubious interpretations of his operatic classic, perhaps hoping his charm covers the bogus nature of the interpretation. It does in this Carmen. The Micaela of Angel Blue has to be one of the finest interpretations of the role we’ve seen. Her eyes are so expressive that they can provide a subtext to support or contradict what she sings. However, when she picked up a pistol, the action seemed imposed by the director. The devout Micael would never trust a fire arm. She has God for protection.
The Frasquita of Sydney Mancasola and the Mercedes of Briana Hunter seem to have the potential to be magnificent, but their placement on the stage did not allow for the dancing which characterizes other performances of the roles. Kyle Ketelsen may just be the Escamillo of our age, though you wouldn’t know that from the ludicrous supertitles which replace the character’s actual lines when he sings. Nevertheless, he soldiered on for the good of Carrie Cracknell’s production.
Victoria de los Angelos (1923-2005), the great Spanish soprano famous during the 1950s for her Carmen, could have set Ms. Cracknell straight on the role and the opera:
“They don’t understand ‘Spanish women, she said. “Some critics used to say my Carmen was too elegant, but Calvé’s Carmen was not cheap and vulgar. Supervia’s Carmen was not that way, either. Even the common gypsy women have a pride and reserve. They stay faithful to one man at a time, no matter what. That is my Carmen.”[ii]
This Carmen’s “elegance, pride, and reserve” began and ended with the conductor, Daniele Rustoni.
Unfortunately.
[i] Alexander Fiske-Harrison, Into the Arena. The World of the Spanish Bullfight
[i] [ii] A.M. Nagler Misdirection. Opera Production in the Twentieth Century. (New York: Archon Books, 19819, p. 96.
[iii] Ptrick McGilligan, Young Orson. The Years of Luck and genius on the Path to Citizen Kane.
[ii] New York Times, November 26, 1977, Page 12
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