Love is a Wild Bird that Can't be Tamed

One of the most striking features of Carmen, and one that contributed to the opera's initial failure in 1875 is the work's "exotic" setting and musical language. Europeans in the 19th century, in addition to being increasingly able to travel to faraway lands (this was the age of rail and steam), were becoming ever more captivated by the idea of the world beyond Western Europe as a place of fantasy, mystery, even danger and sexual license. In France, novelists like Gustave Flaubert and painters such as Henri Regnault captured this spirit in countless evocations of non-Western characters and locales.

An especially popular image was that of the Middle Eastern woman, with her veils, jewels, bronzed beauty and alluring dancing. This inevitably made its way into the operatic domain, where it encouraged the creation of colorful sets and costumes, and inspired composers to use color musically to depict the characters on stage and to inflect the way those characters expressed themselves. Although Bizet was one of the most parochial composers of his day (apart from a brief trip to Rome in 1857, he barely ventured beyond Paris during his short life), he was one of the most important when it came to creating operatic exoticism.

Carmen's music is no longer shocking but rather, in a complete aesthetic reversal, its exoticism is largely responsible for its immense popularity today. Its memorable rhythms and tunes provide both an entry-point into the world of operatic music for those new to opera or a reminder to the experienced opera lover as to why we love this thrilling all-in-one performance art.

Renay Conlin, General & Artistic Director