The Secret Victorianist was back
at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York last week to see Georges Bizet’s Carmen (premiered Paris 1875), which
vies for the title of ‘most popular opera in the world’ along with Verdi’s La Traviata and Mozart’s The Magic Flute depending on your
methodology.
Carmen’s ‘Habanera’ and ‘Toreador Song’ arias are now familiar even among non-lovers
of opera, but did you know these facts about the work’s inception?
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Clémentine Margaine in the Met's 2018 production |
1. The opera was based on an 1845
novella of the same name by French writer Prosper Mérimée (1803-1870). While the stories have similarities
there are key differences. For instance, in Mérimée’s text Carmen has a husband.
2. The first ‘Carmen’ was mezzo-soprano
Célestine Galli-Marié
who was rumoured to be conducting an affair with Bizet throughout the rehearsal
period. Galli-Marié kept pet marmosets, which, at times, accompanied her to
rehearsals.
3. The immediate critical
response to Carmen was, well,
critical. Applause petered out by the final act with the audience disconcerted
by the amorality of the major characters. One critic described the heroine
herself as ‘the very incarnation
of vice’.
4. Over the next decades though
the opera grew in popularity—albeit outside its homeland. Audiences in Austria
and Germany in particular responded well to the work. Carmen was not revived in France again until 1883.
5. Composer Bizet did not live to
see his masterpiece’s triumph. He died, aged 36, in June 1875—3 months after Carmen’s premiere.
6. The first audio recording of
the opera was made in 1908 with Czech soprano Emmy Destin in the titular role.
In this case the performance was in German, rather than the original French.
7. Carmen has spawned adaptations
across multiple media—from Carmen on Ice
to Carmen: A
Hip Hopera, a 2001 movie starring Beyoncé.
What NYC-based performances of nineteenth-century works (operatic or
not) would you like to see the Secret Victorianist go to next? Let me
know—here, on Facebook or by tweeting @SVictorianist.
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