In a crazy world, we hear a bit more Freni, plus -- since the world needs music -- a bit (actually two bits) of "Rita Gorr sings Gluck"

As Act I of Carmen begins --


From Pierre-Auguste Lamy's famous series of lithographs, Act I of Carmen as given at its (not very happy) 1875 premiere at the Opéra-Comique


[fate motif at 2:13; start of Act I c3:37; Micaëla's entrance c5:33] Claude Calès (b), Moralès; Andréa Guiot (s), Micaëla; Chorus and Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra (Paris), Georges Prêtre, cond. EMI, recorded July 1964
[Note: There are English texts for the whole scene farther down in the post.]

by Ken

Huh? "Rita Gorr sings Gluck?" You may wonder, what ever is he on about now?

Georges Prêtre around this time

We'll get to that, but first let me sort of explain the clip we just heard. While doing some wildly assorted Carmen listening for this series of posts remembering Mirella Freni, I happened to listen from the start to Act I as conducted with such unforced yet physically alive pulse by Georges Prêtre -- in a recording that most of us usually think of as "the Callas Carmen." Since the tiny bit of work we're going to accomplish this week calls for us to listen to just this 10 minutes or so of music, I thought we'd lead off with this performance, of a kind I haven't encountered in the here and now for, oh, several decades?


OKAY, OKAY, I KNOW I SHUT DOWN LAST WEEK . . .

"Et vive la musique qui nous tombe du ciel!": Still remembering Freni, we want a Carmen mindset for our meetup with Micaëla

"Et vive la musique qui nous tombe du ciel!"
("And long live music that falls to us from heaven" [or "the sky"])

-- Carmen, in Act II (not to worry, we'll hear a fuller version later)

(Do I have to tell you who the singer is? Again, we'll be hearing more.)

Now, let's just meet Micaëla
(We hear her first appearance, near the start of Carmen,
via the three recordings of the role that Mirella Freni made)


"Don José? We all know him." Micaëla (France Bellemare), Moralès (Alexandre Sylvestre), and the rest of the soldiers at Opéra de Montréal, 2019. (Say, ya think it's easy finding pictures of Moralès?) (photo by Yves Renaud)

A square in Seville. At right the entrance to the tobacco factory. At left the guardhouse. MORALÈS and the soldiers are grouped in front of the guardhouse.

[In the scene so far, we've seen the on-duty company of guardsmen with their sergeant frankly killing time -- smoking, chatting, and watching the many passersby ("Funny people those people are") pass by.]

MICAËLA appears. Hesitant, embarrassed, she looks at the soldiers, advances, retreats, etc.

MORALÈS: Now look at this little lady
who seems to want to speak to us.
See, see! She turns, she hesitates . . .
SOLDIERS: To her aid we must go!
MORALÈS [chivalrous]: What are you looking for, lovely lady?
MICAËLA: Me, I'm looking for a sergeant.
MORALÈS [with emphasis]: That's me . . . here I am!
MICAËLA: My sergeant is named Don José . . .
[lightly] do you know him?
MORALÈS [light]: Don José? We all know him.
MICAËLA [with joy]: Really? Is he with you, please?
MORALÈS [with elegance]: He's not a sergeant in our company.
MICAËLA [disconsolate]: Then he's not here.
MORALÈS: No, my charmer, no, my charmer, he's not here,
but in just a bit he will be here, yes, in just a bit he'll be here.
[light but strongly rhythmic] He'll be here when the incoming guard comes to replace the outgoing guard.
SOLDIERS: He'll be here when the incoming guard
comes to replace the outgoing guard.
MORALÈS [very chivalrous]: But while waiting for him to come,
would you, beautiful child, would you be so kind
as to enter our place for a moment?
MICAËLA [frightened]: Your place?
MORALÈS and SOLDIERS: Our place.
MICAËLA [frightened]: Your place?
MORALÈS and SOLDIERS: Our place.
MICAËLA [delicately]: Oh no, oh no, many thanks, kind soldiers.
MORALÈS: Enter without fear, darling.
I promise you that we'll show for your dear self
all the consideration that's required.
MICAËLA: I don't doubt it. However,
I will return. I will return, it's more prudent!
I will return when the incoming guard
replaces the outgoing guard.
[delicately] I will return when the incoming guard
replaces the outgoing guard.
MORALÈS and SOLDIERS [overlapping]: You have to stay, for the incoming guard is going to replace the outgoing guard.
MORALÈS: You will stay.
MICAËLA: No, no!
MORALÈS and SOLDIERS [overlapping, surrounding her]: You will stay.
MICAËLA: Goodbye, kind soldiers!

with Bernard Demigny (b), Moralès; Vienna State Opera Chorus, Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. RCA, recorded November 1963

with Claude Meloni (b), Moralès; Chorus and Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra (Paris), Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, cond. EMI, recorded mostly in July 1969

with Nicolas Rivenq (b), Moralès; Chorus of Radio France, Orchestre National de France, Seiji Ozawa, cond. Philips, recorded July 13-22, 1988

by Ken

And that's the extent of our first encounter with Micaëla. I think, though, that even this much is enough to suggest why Mirella Freni could make such an impact in the role, lousy French and all. There's the sheer beauty of the singing, of course, but just as important is that sense of "persondom" she brought to her roles, by whatever combination of natural charm and performing craft. If it's important that we care about Micaëla, and I think it's pretty important (my goal this week was a remembrance that could have run under the title "How much do we (should we?) care about Micaëla, and why?"), these are invaluable tools.

Okay, okay, once again I thought this post was going to be an easy one, or at least a relatively manageable one. The goal this week was a remembrance that would have run under the title "How much do we (should we?) care about Micaëla, and why?," and since l left off last week I was under the honest impression that the follow-up was almost ready to roll: to finish rolling out a theory of how Bizet's Micaëla, like Verdi's Nannetta, provided Freni with such a strong springboard to stardom, even though these aren't roles expect to lend themselves to this.

Alas, so often things that are supposed to be easy, or relatively manageable, turn out not to be. When his post is finally done (see the note on timing below), we're barely going to get through our investigation of Micaëla. Along the way we keep running into issues, issues of all sizes and shapes, and while I've ruthlessly turned a deaf ear to many of those diversionary lures, there are some issues I didn't think we could reasonably and we're going to touch on some issues I think it would be a shame to sidestep as we're passing through.

A QUICK, OR AT LEAST QUICK-AS-POSSIBLE,
NOTE ON DON JOSÉ'S (AND MORALÈS'S) RANK

"Sweet memories of our land fill him with strength and courage": Freni as Micaëla

Franco Corelli and Mirella Freni -- not as Don José and Micaëla, alas, but as
Gounod's Roméo and Juliette, at the Met in 1969 (photo by Louis Melancon)

MICAËLA: Your mother was leaving chapel with me,
and that's when, while kissing me --
"You'll go," she said to me, "to the city;
the route isn't long, once in Seville,
you'll search out my son, my José, my child.
And you'll tell him that his mother
dreams night and day about her absent one,
that she regrets and that she hopes,
that she forgives and that she waits.
All that -- right, sweetie? --
on my behalf you'll tell him;
and this kiss that I give you,
on my behalf you'll pass it on to him."
DON JOSÉ: A kiss from my mother?
MICAËLA: A kiss for her son.
DON JOSÉ: A kiss from my mother!
MICAËLA: A kiss for her son.
José, I pass it on to you, as I promised.
DON JOSÉ: My mother, I see her!
Yes, I see again my village!
O memories of other times!
Sweet memories of our land! etc.
MICAËLA [overlapping JOSÉ]: His mother, he sees her!
He sees again his village!
O memories of other times!
Memories of our land! etc.
BOTH: Memories of our land,
you fill his/my heart with strength and courage. etc.
DON JOSÉ [to himself]: Who knows of what demon
I was going to be the prey!
[Collected again] Even from afar my mother protects me,
and this kiss that she sends me,
[with élan] this kiss that she sends me
wards off danger and saves her son.
MICAËLA [like recitative -- animatedly]:
What demon? what danger?
I don't really understand. What does that mean?
DON JOSÉ: Nothing, nothing!
Let's speak of you, our messenger;
you're going to return to our land?
MICAËLA: Yes, this very evening . . .
tomorrow I'll see your mother.
DON JOSÉ: You'll see her! Well then, you'll tell her --
[with spirit that her son loves her and reveres her,
and that he repents today.
He wishes that back there his mother may be happy with him
All that -- right, sweetie? --
on my behalf you'll tell her,
and this kiss that I give you,
on my behalf you'll pass it on to her.
MICAËLA [simply]: Yes, I promise you . . .
on behalf of her son,
I will pass it on as I've promised.
DON JOSÉ: My mother, I see her!
Yes, I see again my village!
O memories of other times!
Sweet memories of our land! etc.
MICAËLA [overlapping JOSÉ]: His mother, he sees her!
He sees again his village!
O memories of other times!
Memories of our land! etc.
BOTH: Memories of our land,
you fill his/my heart with strength and courage, etc.

with Franco Corelli (t), Don José; Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. RCA, recorded November 1963

with Jon Vickers (t), Don José; Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra (Paris), Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, cond. EMI, recorded July and September 1969
And finally, um, a 53-year-old Micaëla?

with Neil Shicoff (t), Don José; Orchestre National de France, Seiji Ozawa, cond. Philips, recorded July 13-22, 1988

by Ken

When last we convened, the immediate plan called for further consideration of three roles that (in addition to Nannetta in Verdi's Falstaff, which we've already considered as much as we're going to) figured importantly in the burgeoning international career of Mirella Freni: Micaëla in Bizet's Carmen, Adina in Donizetti's Elixir of Love, and inevitably her early-career signature role, Mimì in Puccini's La Bohème.

The most fun, certainly, would (or rather will) be Adina, because, while the role may not have figured all that prominently in her career, her assumption of it unleashed an opera-long explosion of sheer vocal joy. But I thought we needed to hold off on that, at least to consider Micaëla, because, as I noted last time, it's such an extraordinary thing to have a singer achieve international sizzle status off of what we normally think of as second-line (if not third-line) lyric-soprano roles like Nannetta and Micaëla. As I said before, other future stars have sung one or both of these roles on their way up, but I can't think of another soprano who was sprung to stardom by either.

Falstaff, to begin with, is such a resolutely ensemble piece that you wouldn't think Nannetta, so carefully threaded by Boito and Verdi through the opera's Merry Wives scenes, before being let loose in the magical final scene in Windsor Park as the Queen of the Fairies, the wives' secret weapon for the tormenting of Falstaff, could be that kind of attention-getter. My theory is that Nannetta embodies the most magical of the many strands of magic woven into the opera: the love and hope invested by the near-octogenarian Verdi in the children, Nannetta and Fenton.

Ostensibly Falstaff is "about" Sir John's grotesque attempt at wooing the Mistresses Ford and Page and the comeuppance delivered by these Merry Wives of Windsor. But in the end, it seems to me, the really important thing that happens is Alice Ford's triumphant thwarting of her husband's monstrous plan to marry their daughter off to the wildly inappropriate Dr. Cajus. There are a lot of reasons why I return so frequently to the 1963 RCA-Decca Falstaff recording conducted so wonderfully by Sir Georg Solti, but certainly one indelible attractions is the performances of Freni and Alfredo Kraus as Nannetta and Fenton.


NOW, AS FOR MICAËLA

"When the thaw comes, the first sunshine is mine": Still more Freni

Freni as Micaëla in 1965 (photo by Bisazza)

BIZET: Carmen: Act III, Recitative (not by Bizet) and aria, Micaëla, "C'est ici des contrebandiers le refuge ordinaire" . . . "Je dis que rien ne m'épouvante"

A mountain pass. A wild rocky place. It is a dark night. The stage has been populated by smugglers and Gypsies including CARMEN and her gal-and-guy cronies and also the AWOL, hopelessly smitten DON JOSÉ. They've all filed out now, leaving JOSÉ behind, posted on a high rock to watch. Unseen by him, MICAËLA, accompanied by a guide, enters. The guide points out the smugglers' camp, then quickly withdraws.

Recitative (by Ernest Guiraud)
This is the smugglers' usual hideout.
He's here, I will see him,
and the duty his mother charged me with
I'll accomplish without trembling.
Aria
I say that nothing frightens me.
I say, alas, that I can take care of myself.
But I play the valiant woman in vain.
Deep in my heart I'm dying with terror!
Alone in this savage place,
all alone, I'm afraid,
but I'm wrong to be afraid.
You will give me courage,
you will protect me, Lord!

I'm going to see close up this woman
whose cursed wiles
have wound up making an outlaw
of the man I once loved!
She's dangerous, she's beautiful,
but I don't want to be afraid!
No, no, I don't want to be afraid!
I will speak boldly in her presence!
Ah! Lord, you will protect me!

Ah! I say that nothing frightens me, etc.
Protect me, o Lord!
Give me courage!

[in Italian] Munich Radio Orchestra, Ino Savini, cond. Eurodisc-Vanguard Cardinal, recorded 1959

Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. Live performance from the Salzburg Festival, July 27, 1966

by Ken

Thus far in our remembrance of Mirella Freni (1935-2020) -- first here, then here -- we've gotten as far as hearing her sprinkle abundant vocal magic as young Nannetta Ford impersonates the Queen of the Fairies in the final scene of Verdi's Falstaff, a role she learned on shorter notice than she thought she could when the call came from Covent Garden, where she wound up winning the heart of the young Carlo Maria Giulini with her debut in 1961 -- and attracting lots of other international attention, including that of Herbert von Karajan, who seems pretty quickly to have thought of her for a couple of other roles he needed to cast.

One was Micaëla in Carmen, which he was doing at Salzburg and (in November 1963) recording for RCA. This was a role Freni didn't have to learn, except perhaps in French (if we can really call what she's singing French); it was the first role she sang onstage, in her hometown of Modena, at the age of 20. (The 1959 Italian-language recording of Micaëla's aria we hear above comes from the same Eurodisc operatic recital from which we've heard her first recordings of Gianni Schicchi's darling daughter Lauretta's "O mio babbino caro," Suor Angelica's "Senza mamma," and Nannetta's "Sul fil d'un soffio etesio.") One thing we might say of Micaëla, though, as we might have said of Nannetta, is that while they're both roles that many up-and-coming singers have sung on their way to bigger opportunities, it's not often that either of these roles is itself a career-builder. For that to happen, the singer has to be something special.

Is there any question that Freni was something really special?


LET'S SAMPLE TWO OTHER ROLES, INCLUDING THE
OTHER ONE THAT KARAJAN HAD FRENI IN MIND FOR

Finally we get to the Final Scene of "Carmen"

Teresa Berganza and Plácido Domingo sing the final scene of Carmen.

by Ken

One loose thread we're going to not so much tie up as pull all the way out before we close up shop here is the Final Scedne of Bizet's Carmen, which we were headed toward ever so gradually in a series of posts that stretched out quite awhile and got us into the scene. But I had it in mind to continue through it, trying to explain, or describe, or just show the point at which the fates of Carmen and Don José intersect so tragically. Well, now that I'm past trying to explain or describe or even just show, I rediscover a large number of audio files I already made of most or all of this scene, clearly intended to be used at some point in some way that I never did figure out. It seems a shame to let them go to waste.

I could have sworn there was one more post, in which I just dumped out the whole scene, and I distinctly remember doing texts for it, but it appears that never got done either. And now I have to re-create the texts for the portions of the scene we didn't cover previously. There are links for all the posts that I can find at the end of this post.


FIRST LET'S REMEMBER HOW THE OPERA BEGINS

Remembering Risë Stevens

Risë Stevens sings the "Habañera" from Act I of Bizet's Carmen -- I gather from a 1951 TV performance.

by Ken

As I mentioned in Friday night's preview, since Risë Stevens was an important exponenet of a number of roles that have commanded attention here at Sunday Classics that we've already heard a fair amount of her. For the most part, then, today's musical remembrance will involve literal remembrances, with the addition of a couple of items we haven't heard before.

The plan couldn't be much simpler: We're just going to revisit each of these classic roles from Stevens's repertory, starting with what I suppose must be considered her real signature role, Carmen.

More of Carmen and Don José, plus Sunday Classics revisits G&S's "The Sorcerer"

The final scene of Carmen with Elena Garança (Carmen) and Roberto Alagna (Don José), directed by Richard Eyre and conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, at the Met in September 2010

by Ken

Okay, here's the deal. I led readers to believe, in Friday night's preview ("'Between us, everything is finished' (Carmen)") that today we would "take (I hope) a fairly close listen to the Carmen-José scene" that concludes Carmen. I really did hope, but it's not going to happen. Meanwhile, up above we've got the whole thing, every damned note, and we'll have another performance -- in English! -- below.

As usually happens when it comes to musical matters that really matter to me, and trying to explain why they matter, I'm having a devil of a time, and I really don't want to give up without a fight. Yesterday when I got home from a New York Transit Museum tour of the 1904 South 6th Street subway power substation in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (still in service, though not as originally constructed), I got a little more work done on Carmen, but then I had to brace myself for the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players' revival -- after ten years! -- of The Sorcerer, and I was faced with staying up all night to do some sort of slapdash job before heading off for my Wolfe Walkers tour of the Cloisters and Fort Tryon Park with Justin Ferate this morning. (At least I didn't have to travel far for that one!) Also, it was really cold in my apartment. In that discouraged state, I made the executive decision that for once no, I didn't feel like doing that. So I'm not going to.


BY WAY OF CONSOLATION PRIZE --

here's the whole of the Final Scene from the 1946 Hollywood Bowl English-language performance -- conducted by Leopold Stokowski, no less! -- we sampled Friday night.

Preview: "Between us, everything is finished" (Carmen)

Olga Borodina and Marcelo Álvarez as Carmen and José (Act II)

by Ken

We've been working our way up to the final meeting of the free-spirited (but also doom-ridden) gypsy Carmen and her onetime soldier lover Don José. This week we get there.

We've got a lot of performances of chunks of this surprisingly compact climactic scene coming up, but I want to highlight in particular two statements that define the state of stalemate Carmen and José have reached by the start of Act IV of Bizet's Carmen.


FIRST HERE THEY ARE IN ENGLISH (OF A SORT) --

which, as we'll see in a moment, is only sort of what they actually say. (I don't want to make too much fun of Ramón Vinay's English, which after all is no less idiomatic than most of our original-language Josés' French. The Chilean tenor was a wonderfully intense and humane singer in some of opera's most demandingly heroic roles.)

DON JOSÉ: "I'm not threatening you"
[rendered here as "I have not come to harm you"]


[in English] Ramón Vinay (t), Don José; Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski, cond. Live performance, July 11, 1946

CARMEN says: "Between us, everything is finished"
[rendered here as: "For you and I, this is the end"]
DON JOSÉ says: "Carmen, there's still time! Yes, there's still time!"
[rendered here as: "Carmen, I cannot believe you! No, I cannot believe you!"]


[in English] Winifred Heidt (ms), Carmen; Ramón Vinay (t), Don José; Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski, cond. Live performance, July 11, 1946


NOW HERE THEY ARE IN FRENCH (OF A SORT), AND
IN CORRECT ORDER, AND WITH THE ACTUAL TEXT --

All the major players in "Carmen" gather outside the bullfighting arena in Seville

The Entr'acte to Act III is played by the Berlin Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel, with Emmanuel Pahud as flute soloist, at the orchestra's 2010 Silvesterkonzert (i.e., New Year's Eve concert)

by Ken

As I explained in Friday night's preview ("Enter the Toreador"), we're picking up on our look at the unfolding of the romantic obsession of the Army sergeant Don José, a Basque who has left his home in Navarre for the southerly latitudes of Seville, for the free-spirited gypsy Carmen, whose original interest in José was the very fact that he was one of the rare man who shows absolutely no interest in her. However, by the end of Act II, where we left the couple in part 1 of this series ("'And long live the music that falls on us from heaven' (Carmen)"), he was thoroughly under her spell.

We're going to move pretty quickly through Act III to get to the climactic meeting of the now-former lovers in Act IV.

BIZET: Carmen: Entr'acte to Act III

We already did the Act III Entr'acte pretty thoroughly in a February 2012 flute-and-harp post, and we just heard (and saw) it again at the top of the post. Well, here it is again.


Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, cond. EMI, recorded 1969-70

Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion Française, Sir Thomas Beecham, cond. EMI, recorded 1958-59


WE'RE IN THE MOUNTAINS NOW, IN "A PICTURESQUE
AND WILD SITE" WHERE CARMEN & CO. HAVE GONE . . .

Preview: Enter the Toreador

By the time Don José arrives at Lillas Pastia's joint in Act II of Carmen, we have a new player. Enter the Toreador. (Above: Aris Agiris as Escamillo at Covent Garden, 2010.)

ESCAMILLO: Let's go! On guard! Let's go! On guard!
Ah! Toreador, on guard! Toreador! Toreador!

And surely think, yes think while fighting
that a dark eye is watching you,
and that love awaits you!
Toreador! Love awaits you!
ALL: Toreador, on guard! Toreador! Toreador!
And surely think, yes think while fighting
that a dark eye is watching you,
and that love awaits you!
Toreador! Love awaits you!


The high-flying French baritone Ernest Blanc sings the refrain of the first stanza of the Toreador Song, with Sir Thomas Beecham conducting Radiodiffusion Française forces in his 1958-59 EMI recording of Carmen. (Don't worry, we're going to hear the complete Toreador Song.)

by Ken

Even though in this Carmen series (begun two weeks ago, "'And long live the music that falls on us from heaven' (Carmen)") we're trying to focus on the romantic obsession of Don José, we can't ignore the other characters who intersect with the poor fellow's existence at this crucial moment -- most obviously Carmen herself, of course, but also the bullfighter Escamillo. For him Bizet happens to have concocted one of the most famous tunes in the history of tunedom.

In Part 1 of this series we had taken José up to the point of being the recipient of a special dance from the object of his infatuation when he meets her at Carmen's friend Lillas Pastia's joint on the outskirts of Seville -- just as soon as the young sergeant has been released from the brig for allowing Carmen to escape from his custody in connection with her stabbing of a fellow cigarette-factory worker. However, by the time José shows up at Lillas Pastia's, the dashing toreador has made an appearance, followed by his adoring throng. As it happens, the final stage of the relationship between José and Carmen is going to play out in front of the arena where Escamillo is toreadoring.

SO LET'S HEAR ESCAMILLO MAKE HIS ENTRANCE

"And long live the music that falls on us from heaven" (Carmen)

Plácido Domingo sings the Flower Song at the Vienna State Opera, Dec. 9, 1978, with Carlos Kleiber conducting and Franco Zeffirelli directing. (The unheard Carmen is Elena Obraztsova.)

DON JOSÉ: The flower that you threw me
stayed with me in my prison.
Withered and dried out, that flower
always kept its sweet perfume;
and for hours at a time,
with my eyes closed,
I became drunk with its smell,
and in the night I saw you.
I took to cursin gyou,
to desting you, to saying to myself,
"Why did fate have
to put her there in my path?
Then -- I accused myself of blasphemy,
and I felt within myself
I felt only one desire,
one lone desire, one lone hope:
to see you again, Carmen, to see you again.
For you had only to appear,
only to cast a glance at me,
to take possession of my whole being,
o my Carmen,
and I was your possession!
Carmen, I love you!

Enrico Caruso, tenor; orchestra. Victor, recorded Nov. 26, 1911 (restored by Bob Varney)

Georges Thill, tenor; symphony orchestra, Philippe Gaubert, cond. EMI, recorded 1928-29

Jussi Bjoerling, tenor; Frederick Schauwecker, piano. RCA/BMG, recorded in recital at Carnegie Hall, Sept. 24, 1955

Jonas Kaufmann, tenor; Prague Phliharmonic Orchestra, Marco Armiliato, cond. Decca, recorded August 2007

by Ken

As I mentioned in Friday night's preview ('If you don't love me, I love you, and if I love you, watch out' -- meet La Carmencita"), we're putting our Mahler Seventh Symphony project on hold after doing the three middle movements last week ("Mahler's most characteristically 'Mahlerian' symphony is also his least loved"). (I can report that the set containing the Klemperer-EMI recording finally arrived yesterday!)

Instead this week we've started another two-part post, in effect a continuation of a series that began with a fair amount of still-not-completed poking around the two great operatic retellings of the story of Manon and the Chévalier des Grieux an then the famous Letter Scene inspired by the passion of Tatiana in Tchaikovsky's Yevgeny Onegin. The subject here is obsessive passion: first as shared by Manon and des Grieux, then as experienced unidirectionally by Tatiana, and starting this week going in the opposite direction, with the obsession of the Basque Don José, an army sergeant, for the gypsy Carmen.


LET'S QUICKLY REMIND OURSELVES HOW CARMEN STARTS

We've heard the Carmen Prelude and the entr'actes to Acts II-IV, back in March. The rousing Prelude is music that has entered the popular imagination. We hear it continuing on into the first statement of the "fate motif," which we've already heard attached to Carmen's hurling of a cassia flower at José's feet (which he would shortly after be seen picking up), and we just heard as the lead-in to José's desperately imploring Flower Song from Act II.

BIZET: Carmen: Prelude


Orchestra of the Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, cond. EMI, recorded July 1969-Feb. 1970

Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded November 1963

Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Michel Plasson, cond. EMI, recorded Feb.-Mar. 2002


IN THE PREVIEW I SUGGESTED KEEPING AN EYE ON
THAT FLOWER THAT CARMEN HURLS AT DON JOSÉ

Preview: "If you don't love me, I love you, and if I love you, watch out" -- meet La Carmencita

Keep your eye on the flower: We're in the square in Seville outside the cigarette factory where the charismatic gypsy CARMEN and the other cigarette girls work.CARMEN has just sung her Habañera (which we'll be coming back to in a moment) to the assembled soldiers and assorted other drooling males. As our excerpt begins she has been surrounded by a group of importuning young men. The only man paying no attention to her the young Basque sergeant DON JOSÉ.

CARMEN looks at the young men one after the other, leaves the circle they've formed around her, and goes straight up to DON JOSÉ, who is still occupied with his little chain. CARMEN throws a cassia flower at DON JOSÉ. He stands up abruptly. The flower has fallen at his feet. Outburst of general laughing.

CIGARETTE GIRLS [surrounding DON JOSÉ]: Love is a gypsy child;
it's never, never had any law.
If you don't love me, I love you;
if I love you, watch out!

The factory bell. The girls exit running. CARMEN exits first. The young men exit right and left. The soldiers and the lieutenant return to their posts. DON JOSÉ has his eyes fixed on the flower, which has fallen on the ground in front of him.

Chorus of Radio France, Orchestre National de France, Seiji Ozawa, cond. Philips, recorded July 13-22, 1988

by Ken

In just a moment José is going to pick that flower up, and then . . . well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Just keep your eye on that flower!

You thought we were going to be finishing up with the Mahler Seventh Symphony this week, right? Or rather starting and finishing up, since it's the hulking first and last movements that still await us after hearing the enchantingly weird three middle movements last week ("Mahler's most characteristically 'Mahlerian' symphony is also his least loved").

Well, for various reasons -- not least that I'm still waiting for that CD set I mentioned ordering which includes the Klemperer recording of the symphony, rather than working from my LP copy -- I'm going to put that off till (probably) next week, and this week start another two-part inquiry, which itself forms a series of sorts with our recent looks at the operatic retellings of the story of Manon and the Chévalier des Grieux and the unrequited passion of Tatiana in Tchaikovsky's Yevgeny Onegin.

I'll explain this better, or at least more fully, on Sunday. Meanwhile, as promised above, let's have our proper introduction to La Carmencita.