three hateful figures
by
Douglas Messerli
Ludovic
Halévy and Henri Meilhac (libretto, based on the novella by Prosper Mérimée),
Georges Bizet (composer), Richard Eyre (stage director), Gary Halvorson
(director) Carmen / 2019 (The Metropolitan Opera HD live-broadcast)
Over
numerous years I have come to know almost every aria in and the plot of Carmen, but oddly enough I had never
seen a performance of the popular opera. So, the announcement by the Metropolitan
Opera that this year they were including their tragic tale of the gypsy Carmen
and the soldier Don José in their live HD broadcast, led Howard and me to buy
tickets. And this production was such an excellent one, that feel that perhaps I
need not see another.
I say that, knowing that I might truly
enjoy hearing Georges Bizet’s most memorable score, and would truly enjoy
singers performing it of the quality of this production, but must also proclaim
that the central characters are all rather repulsive.
Yes, Carmen (Clémentine Margaine in this
production) is a truly independent spirit, who will have love only on her
terms, as she expresses it in her Act 1 "Habanera.” If in a society where
men generally made the decision about whom they loved, the cigarette girl,
given her beauty, is able to make her own choices of lovers and to declare that
her shifting interests may result in heart-break or even death for her former
lovers. In short, she recognizes herself as a dangerous siren who spends a
great deal of energy in playing a kind of dominating whore, spinning webs
around men only to leave them entrapped when she moves on to her next lover.
And all those around her, apparently, know her pattern and steer clear of her
sexual enticements. Only outsiders such as Don José (Roberto Alagna) and the
toreador, Escamillo (Alexander Vinogradov) might allow themselves to fall for
her charms.
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It is precisely her independence and willfulness
that attracts men to her. In a society of feminine passivity, Carmen stands out
in her alluring masculine-like stance. One might even observe that she
symbolically stands for soldiers and toreadors alike—both groups of which,
because of their historical association with their own sex and their colorful
costumes, have long been the focus of gay intrigue—as a kind of acceptable drag
incarnation of their male colleagues. *
But Carmen also is a betrayer, a violent
fighter, a smuggler, and thief, who entices the flustered Don José not only to
leave the saintly—and again quite passive female, who visits her would-be lover
only upon instructions and the pleas of Don José’s mother, Micaéla (Aleksandra Kurzak, in real life the wife of Alagna) free her from
arrestment, for which he is imprisoned for months, to leave his employment as a
soldier, and to join the gypsy smugglers. True, he is intoxicated by his love
for Carmen, but we also see through these acts just how weak he is as a man. In
a sense, Don José is as passive as Carmen is independent. And he too has now
betrayed all those to whom he was formerly committed. Is it any wonder that
Carmen can no longer admire or love him? By giving in to all of her demands he
has simply shown himself as a male weakling (and we must remember that Mérimée's tale is very much about gender stereotypes,
even if they are often overturned).
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Carmen has now fallen in love with an
equally odious being, the self-enchanted, braggadocios bull-fighter from
Seville, Escamillo. The children (which are absolutely wonderful in this
production, which provided them even with a backstage interview in the
intermission) and the locals may all celebrate his achievements, but there is
something amiss with this “hero.” Escamillo may appear brave to attempt to
visit the smuggler’s mountain hangout to seek out Carmen, but he is quickly
bested in a fight with Carmen’s cohorts and backs off.
Even if Carmen is currently smitten by
him, we recognize that she will eventually perceive his true cowardice and will
leave him as well. Fortunately, we never discover what might have occurred in
their relationship, but it might be interesting as a separate work to imagine
what their relationship would have been and how it might have ended—surely,
once more, in violence.
The true hero of this opera is Micaéla,
who truly enters the lion’s den of the smuggler’s hideout, trembling with fear,
not only for her encounter with the suspicious males, but for having to encounter
her nemesis Carmen. Yet only she is able, temporarily at least, of weaning Don
José away from this world so that he might attend to his mother’s impending
death.
Her victory, however, is a short one. He
returns to Carmen, this time taking on the most horrific role he might ever
embody of a murderer, waiting to be arrested and hung.
No matter how you might view
conventional behavior, you have to be shocked by the trio of horrific beings at
the center of this story. Opera is filled with hateful figures, criminals,
rapists, and many, many murderers. But these three rather shady figures
starring in a single work may be a kind of record.
They all may be proclaiming love, but the
results of that love make you shudder. Even Don Giovanni, the lecherous count
also roaming the Seville streets, seems almost saintly in comparison.
As
the gentle and mostly unjudgmental Howard said, upon leaving the theater, “these
are not such nice people.”
I was enchanted by the performances and music,
even if it didn’t make me want to abandon my life and run into the mountains.
*It’s
fascinating, simply as a coincidental piece of gay gossip, that Marcel Proust,
after Bizet’s death, befriended the composer’s wife and son, upon who based two of the central figures in his
masterpiece, Remembrance of Things Past. The author of the original Carmen, Prosper Mérimée, although having
occasional affairs and long correspondences with women, never married and lived
most of his life with his mother. He did have a one-night stand, apparently, with
George Sand (not impressed with his sexual prowess), who might almost be portrayed
as a kind of Carmen, a strong-willed, talented seductress of many powerful men.
Los Angeles,
February 6, 2019
Reprinted
from USTheater, Opera, and Performance (February
2019).
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