Summary of �ｿｽgCarmen�ｿｽh in 3 Minutes - Opera Synopsis First performed March 3, 1875. Libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halevy (in French), after Merimee. A Summary of �ｿｽgCarmen�ｿｽh Act 1 Around 1820, in Seville, Spain, the most provocative gypsy, Carmen, is of all the girls at a place near a cigarette factory. There are a lot of men and women. She sings �ｿｽeHabanera�ｿｽf and, she fascinates the young men there. But, only a soldier of the guard, Don Jose isn�ｿｽft interested in her. Carmen provocatively throws a flower to him, and leaves. The girls who went back to the cigarette factory, cause a quarrel. Carmen is to blame, and she is arrested. However, Carmen seduces the guard, Jose, and runs away. Act 2 A month later, Jose who was imprisoned for letting Carmen slip away, has just been released, and he goes to meet her at a tavern.

With that flower in his hand, He tells her his feelings. Carmen requires Jose not to report for roll call, but to stay with her. Jose is worried. He can�ｿｽft help himself to join the smugglers with her. Act 3 Carmen�ｿｽfs group members are smugglers. Jose later regrets his choice. Carmen is already in love another man, Escamillo who is a bullfighter. Then, Jose�ｿｽfs childhood friend, Micaela, visits him. She informs him that his mother is seriously ill. Jose decides to go home. The following month, at the square in front of the bullfight arena, Escamillo who is Carmen�ｿｽfs lover, is welcomed by spectators. He enters the arena. Carmen remains at the square, then, Jose appears. He demands she leave with him, but she refuses to. In rejection to his persistence, Carmen throws away the ring that Jose once gave her. Jose stabs her to death with a dagger, and he is then dumbfounded by his actions.

A Comment on �ｿｽgCarmen�ｿｽh �ｿｽgCarmen�ｿｽh is one of the most famous operas in the world. But, for Georges Bizet who composed this opera, �ｿｽgCarmen�ｿｽh is his only hit opera. Bizet was successful through his own orchestral work, �ｿｽgL'Arlesienne.�ｿｽh He concentrated his attention on composing this opera. The world premiere of this opera failed because of trouble with the staff in the theater. After three months, Bizet died suddenly at the age of 37. One of Bizet�ｿｽfs friends, Ernest Guiraud, rearranged Bizet�ｿｽfs opera a little over the three months after Bizet�ｿｽfs death, and everyone appreciated this version of the opera. There are a lot of reasons why Carmen gained popularity. One of them is the fascinating music by Bizet. And, this opera was composed using the �ｿｽgrealism�ｿｽh method. Carmen blazed the path to �ｿｽgverismo opera�ｿｽh which is a kind of realism opera.

This opera is the most important in opera history. There are a lot of famous melodies in this opera, for example, the famous prelude, �ｿｽgHabanera�ｿｽh sung by title role, Carmen, and other songs. You would never be bored by this opera, though operas generally are long. �ｿｽgToreador Song�ｿｽh sung by Escamillo who is a bullfighter in Act 2 is outstanding, and the Aria sung by Micaela in Act 3 is lyrical and beautiful. Many first time opera-goers would enjoy seeing this opera. Recommended Recordings and Videos [CD] Karajan; Berlin Philharmoniker, Choeur de l�ｿｽfOpera de Paris; Baltsa, Carreras, van Dam, Ricciarelli. (1983, Deutsche Grammophon) [CD] Sinopoli; Bavarian State Opera Orchestra and Chorus; Larmore, Moser, Ramey, Gheorghiu.

(1996, Teldec) [DVD] Kleiber; Zeffirelli; Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Vienna State Opera Choir; Obraztsova, Domingo, Masurok, Buchanan. (1978, TDK) [DVD] Pappano; Zambello; The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, The Royal Opera Chorus; Antonacci, Kaufmann, d'Arcangelo, Amsellem. (2007, Decca) Gluck, C. W. (1714-1787) Opera Carmen Carmen: Carmen is a French tragic opera based lossely on Prosper Méériméée’s (French writer of romantic stories who wrote a novel by the same name 1846), The Opera was composed by Georges Bizet (1838-1875) and first produced in Paris in 1875 The Opera is set in the year 1820, in Seville, Spain. The lead heroine is Carmen (a mezzo-soprano). She is a cigarette girl of who is passionate, gorgeous, temperamental and deliciously mysterious.

In no time she wins the heart, mind and soul of Don José (a tenor) who is a corporal of the dragoons (an elite group in the army). He has a promising career, but throws it all away, forgetting honor and duty, totally blind to love, goes AWOL, and joins Carmen and a band of smugglers. Having destroyed her lover’s career, she tosses him off like a child bored with a new toy, and turns her affections to a new man – a handsome and popular bull fighter Escamillo (a baritone). Unable to accept her rejection, Don José confronts Carmen outside the arena where she awaits her new lover and he stabs her with a knife. The bullfighter, victorious in the ring, victorious in love, emerges to claim the woman with the crowd shouting his praises and they all find Don José with bloody hands sobbing over the lifeless body of Carmen. -- Fini (jssgallery.org) Bizet: Carmen Georges Bizet (1838-1875): Works Georges Bizet At the level of a composer such as Mozart, Beethoven, or Verdi, Georges Bizet is a somewhat minor figure.

However, from his days in Italy (1857-60) onwards, he showed the ability to write supple, lyrical melodies, and warm, colorful harmonies that were eventually to make his name in two brilliant masterpieces that are as popular as ever today: the opera Carmen (1875), and the orchestral suite from L'Arlésienne ("The Girl from Arles [in Provence, S. France]", 1872). Bizet's works belong primarily to three genres: opera: chiefly The Pearl Fishers (1863), The Pretty Maid of Perth (1867), Djamileh (1872), and above all Carmen (1875) orchestral music: Symphony in C (1855), L'Arlésienne Suite no.1 (1872) songs with piano: about 25 solo songs, many of them exquisite Other genres in which he wrote are: choral works: oratorios, cantatas, and occasional works, all secular Alphonse Daudet piano pieces: including the Children's Games for piano duet.

L'Arlésienne was originally a stage work: a presentation of the play L'Arlésienne by Alphonse Daudet, with "incidental music." Although the stage version is not performed nowadays, Bizet took the music and made it into an orchestral "Suite" (i.e. a loose collection of separate short pieces, taken from a stage-work such as a ballet, an opera, etc.). Called "L'Arlésienne Suite No.1," it is a perennial favorite, frequently played in the concert hall, and much recorded. There is also a Suite No.2 that was compiled after Bizet's death by his life-long friend Ernest Guiraud (who composed the recitatives for Carmen) from Bizet's original music. Habanera by Georges Bizet Songfacts Habanera by Georges Bizet Songfacts Songfacts This aria from the famous opera Carmen by Georges Bizet is also referred to as "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle." ("Love is a rebellious bird"). Its score was adapted from the habanera "El Arreglito," then popular in cabarets.

Bizet thought it to be a folk song, only to discover that it was a recently-composed ditty called "El Arreglito" by Basque composer Sebastian de Yradier, who had died only ten years earlier. The composer had to add a note to the vocal score of Carmen, acknowledging its source. The habanera is a genre of Cuban popular dance music of the 19th century, which was brought back to Spain by sailors, where it became popular for a while and was danced by all classes of society. This aria was so called because it was written in the rhythm of the Cuban dance. Georges Bizet was born in Paris on Oct. 25, 1838. His father was a singing teacher, and his mother, a gifted pianist. Young Georges was a child prodigy and when only nine, he entered the great Paris Conservatory of Music and rapidly developed into a brilliant pianist. At the age of 19 Bizet won the Grand Prix de Rome, a government scholarship. He studied in Rome for three years before returning to Paris where he refused offers of a teaching position at the conservatory and a career as a concert pianist. Instead he devoted his efforts to composition.

His works in this period include the opera The Pearl Fishers and the music for Alphonse Daudet's play L'Arlesienne. However his efforts to achieve a reputation as an operatic composer were largely unsuccessful, and he never remained free of financial worries. Carmen is an opéra comique about a passionate but self-destructive gypsy girl and her dramatic murder at the hands of her pathologically jealous soldier lover. Bizet based his work on Prosper Mérimée's short novel, Carmen, which had appeared in October 1845. Despite its popularity today, Bizet's work bombed at its 1875 premiere at the Opéra Comique of Paris on March 3, 1875 as the audience found the risqué plot, with its robbers, gypsies and cigarette-girls, too hot to handle. The critics denounced it a failure, accusing it as being "immoral" and "superficial." "What is really wrong with this Carmen is that there's not a good tune in it," splattered one reporter. By the end of its first run of 48 performances, the theatre was giving tickets away in order to stimulate attendance.

Bizet was devastated and died of a heart attack three months later aged just 37. Five months after the composer's death, it was produced in Vienna, to critical and popular success, which began its path to worldwide popularity. Since the 1880s it has been one of the world's most performed operas and a staple of the operatic repertoire. Tragically, Bizet never knew of the opera's eventual success. Carmen has been the subject of several popular-music adaptations over the years. Many of you will be familiar with Carmen Jones, a 1943 Broadway musical adaptation with book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. A Hollywood favorite, "Habanera" has featured on the soundtracks of numerous movies including, Up, Superman Returns, Bad News Bears, Bad Santa and Trainspotting. Bizet and Carmen Much of the career of Georges Bizet (1838-1875) was spent as an arranger or orchestrator of scores and as a rehearsal pianist for a number of theatres in Paris during his lifetime. This meant that he came to know the operatic repertoire inside and out, and he was a man of the theatre as well as a musician.

As an opera composer, however, he wasn’t terribly successful until his opera The Pearl Fishers was commissioned by the Theatre Lyrique in 1863. It had a respectable 18 performances and was well thought of by many of his contemporaries, but it was never revived in his lifetime. Not long afterwards, in 1867, another of his operas, The Fair Maid of Perth, was presented at the Lyrique, again had 18 performances and again disappeared from sight. Many other works exist in fragments, never quite making it to the stage. In 1871 he was finally offered a commission by the Opéra Comique for a one-act oriental fantasy entitled Djalimeh. Although it did not do well, the Comique decided to take a chance on offering him a three-act commission. As was common for the period, they hired the librettists and left the creators on their own to choose a subject. It was Bizet himself who presented the striking and original idea of setting Carmen as an opera.

The Mérimée novella had been originally published in 1845 and it caused something of a scandal with all its gypsy passion, Spanish color and fleshed-out characters. The Comique’s chosen librettists, Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, were old hands at opera theatre work. They had both provided excellent librettos for Jacques Offenbach. And although they were initially scandalized by Bizet’s choice, they eventually came around. After all, it gave them the opportunity to write something quite different from what they had been used to. But it was the directors of the theatre, Camille Du Locle and Adolphe de Leuven who feared for the audiences’ reaction. In fact, de Leuven, the more old-fashioned of the two directors, was so incensed with even the possibility of Carmen being produced by the Comique that he resigned from the company. Here is De Leuven’s reaction on hearing of the composer’s choice: Isn’t she killed by her lover? And that background of thieves, gypsies, cigar-makers!—At the Opera-Comique, a family theatre! The theatre where marriages are arranged!

Every night five or six boxes are taken for that purpose. You will frighten off our audience. It’s impossible! Du Locle was much more progressive and he allowed the production of Carmen to go forward, but not without reservations, begging Bizet and his collaborators to tone down some of the more salacious aspects of the story. (Du Locle was also a sometime collaborator with Verdi, completing the French version of the libretto of Don Carlo and providing the original scenario for the opera Aïda.) Carmen was completed by the summer of 1874 and in September a five-month rehearsal process began. The lengthy preparation period was certainly needed because of revisions which were constantly being demanded by the theatre. The chorus and the orchestra caused considerable problems themselves. At the Comique the chorus usually stood in one spot during an opera with their eyes fixed on the conductor. They were finding it impossible to do what the composer demanded: that they actually be involved in the action of the plot. They had never been challenged to act and nearly rebelled at having to move and sing at the same time. For their part, the orchestra refused to play certain passages which they thought to be utterly unplayable.

The principal singers weren’t much better, but the first Carmen, Marie Galli-Marié, believed whole-heartedly in the work and in the composer; with her encouragement and support, the piece made it through the grueling rehearsal process and had its first performance on March 3, 1875. In the audience that night were the most important musicians in Paris at the time: Massenet, Offenbach, Delibes, Thomas and Gounod. The first act was well received but by the time the sexy gypsy was stabbed by her former lover Don José on a street outside the bull ring at the end of the opera, the audience’s enthusiasm had waned. They were completely bewildered, shocked and uncomprehending of what they had seen on stage. They were also stunned by what they heard musically between the pages of spoken dialogue which had always been a hallmark of Opera Comique productions. According to one of the opening night critics: It is a delirium of castanets, of provocative hip-swinging, of knife stabs gallantly distributed among both sexes; of cigarettes roasted by the ladies; of St. Vitus dances, smutty rather than sensuous.

The pathological condition of this unfortunate woman more likely to inspire the solicitude of physicians than to interest the decent spectators who come to the Opera Comique accompanied by their wives and daughters…At the Comique, a subsidized theatre, a decent theatre if ever there was one, Mlle. Carmen should temper her passions! Audiences from the second night onwards were much kinder, but the damage had been done. Although the opera had a 48 performance run, most of the audiences were papered or ‘comped’; they did not pay for their tickets. Bizet died three months later of a heart attack, in June of 1875, brought on by a debilitating throat condition. He was 36 years old and thought his masterpiece to be a complete failure. A few months later the opera was produced in Vienna. A student of Bizet, Ernest Guiraud, provided sung accompanied recitatives to replace the spoken dialogue, and Carmen was reborn as grand, tragic opera. It hasn’t left the active repertoire since.

Carmen | opera by Bizet | Britannica.com opera by Bizet Georges Bizet Carmen, opera in four acts by French composer Georges Bizet —with a libretto in French by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy —that premiered on March 3, 1875. With a plot based on the 1845 novella of the same name by Prosper Mérimée , Bizet’s Carmen was groundbreaking in its realism, and it rapidly became one of the most popular Western operas of all time. It is the source of many memorable and widely recognized songs, notably those known by the popular names “ Toréador Song ” and “ Habanera. ” Carmen also is the best-known example of opéra-comique , a genre of French opera not necessarily comic but featuring both spoken dialogue and sung portions. Despite its current reputation, however, it was condemned by the earliest critics, who were unaccustomed to seeing the lives of the common folk, much less the world of gypsies (in Mérimée they are specifically identified with the Roma ), smugglers, deserters, factory workers, and various ne’er-do-wells given centre stage.

Celestine Galli-Marie in the title role of Carmen when the opera premiered in 1875 in Paris, France. The Print Collector/Heritage-Images Publicity photographs from the revival of Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen at … From The Victrola Book of the Opera by Samuel Holland Rous (Victor Talking Machine Company,Camden, N.J., 1921). Background and context Bizet was asked to write a new work for Paris Opéra-Comique, which for a century had specialized in presenting light moralistic pieces in which virtue is ultimately rewarded. No doubt Bizet was expected to write something in that vein. Instead, he chose to bring the underclass and unheroic to light. In doing so he blazed a new trail for the verismo composers, such as Giacomo Puccini , of the next generation. Bizet had gone to some lengths to familiarize himself with the musical sounds and forms of the region in which Carmen is set, and several of the best-known portions use rhythms he learned from those studies. He was only 36 years old when Carmen premiered, and he was devastated by the initial rejection of his work as immoral and vulgar.

According to the mores of the opera-going public, women neither smoked cigarettes in public nor engaged in physical fights, nor were they sexually free. Furthermore, opera was a refined art, not one to concern itself with lowlifes and scoundrels. Such was the immediate response to Carmen that, at the time of Bizet’s death from a heart condition exactly three months after the work’s premiere, he was convinced that he had written the greatest failure in the history of opera. He did not survive to witness the accuracy of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ’s prediction that “[t]en years hence Carmen will be the most popular opera in the world.” Georges Bizet. Don José, a corporal of dragoons (tenor) Escamillo, a matador (baritone) Micaëla, a peasant girl (soprano) Frasquita, a gypsy friend of Carmen (soprano) Mercédès, a gypsy friend of Carmen (mezzo-soprano) Innkeeper, guide, officers, dragoons, various workers in a cigarette factory, gypsies, smugglers, etc.

Setting and story summary Carmen is set in and around Sevilla , Spain , about 1820. Act I A square in Sevilla, outside a cigarette factory. Corporal Moralès and a group of soldiers idly watch people come and go in the square. Micaëla, a young woman from the country, attracts their interest. She is looking for a brigadier named Don José. Invited to wait for him in the guardhouse, she demurs and says she will return later. Moralès and soldiers resign themselves to watching the passersby again. Man-Made Marvels: Fact or Fiction? The changing of the guard is heralded by a group of street urchins imitating the soldiers. Don José and Lieutenant Zuniga join Moralès and the other men. Zuniga asks José about the young women who work in the cigarette factory, but José is not interested in them. Zuniga then teases José about his interest in Micaëla; José admits that he loves her. Britannica Stories Habañera ” from Carmen by Georges Bizet, … The women at the factory come out for their break. They seductively smoke their cigarettes, to the delight of the men.

Then Carmen, the gypsy, comes out of the factory, attracting all the attention to herself. The men beg her to tell them when she will love them; she replies, maybe never, maybe tomorrow, but certainly not today, for love is like a rebellious bird and cannot be captured so easily (“ Habanera ”). The men continue to plead for her favours, but her eye lights on the inattentive José. She tosses a flower at him and, as the factory bell rings, runs back to work with the others. The crowd disperses. José, left alone, picks up the flower. He is annoyed at Carmen’s effrontery, but the flower is pretty and its perfume is sweet—the woman must be a witch , he concludes. Just then Micaëla returns, presenting him with a letter and some money and a kiss from José’s mother, the last of which she chastely bestows on him. The kiss brings back sweet memories of his mother and his village home (Duet: “ Ma mère je la vois ”). Although his reverie is interrupted by thoughts of Carmen, he hopes the memory of his mother will sustain him.

Micaëla is confused by this, but he does not explain, instead charging her to return to his mother with a message of love from him. She leaves him alone with the letter. As he reads it, he promises to marry Micaëla and then curses Carmen. Suddenly the factory entrance disgorges a knot of women, fighting wildly and calling for help. Some blame Carmen for starting a hair-pulling fight with one Manuelita; others blame Manuelita. Zuniga orders José to investigate. As the soldiers calm the women, José returns with Carmen in custody; she has wounded the other woman. When Zuniga tries to question her, she merely sings “tra la la” and refuses to speak. Zuniga remarks that she can keep singing in prison . This delights some of the women, but Carmen strikes one of them, and Zuniga orders José to bind her arms and conduct her to jail. Carmen, unfazed, tells José that he will do her bidding, for he loves her. When he hotly denies it, she reminds him of the flower and tells him that its charm has worked.

He forbids her to talk to him, but she seductively invites him to join her at a tavern outside Sevilla, where she will dance (“ Seguidilla ”). José is finding it difficult to control himself, so he again orders her to stop, but when she tells him that he loves her, and that she could well love him in return, he is undone. He frees her, begging her to keep her word to love him. Connect with Britannica Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest Zuniga returns with the order committing Carmen to prison. Carmen whispers to José that, on the way, she will pretend to push him; he is to turn around as he falls, and she will take care of the rest. She sings the “ Habanera ” to Zuniga as she leaves, then suddenly pushes José, escapes, and runs off, laughing. For his dereliction of duty, José is arrested and jailed. Act II Lillas Pastia’s tavern on the outskirts of Sevilla. Listen: Bizet, Georges: Carmen Historical recording (c.

1916) of Geraldine Farrar singing “ Chanson ”… Carmen and her friends Frasquita and Mercédès sing and dance for Zuniga, Moralès, the soldiers, and other gypsies at the tavern (Chanson bohème: “ Les Tringles des sistres tintaient ”). When the dance is over, Frasquita reports that the tavern must close up by order of the magistrate. Zuniga invites the women to come with them, but Frasquita says they will stay, and Carmen will not answer. Zuniga accuses Carmen of being annoyed with him because José is in prison. Then he informs her that José is now free, and Carmen is happy to hear it. As the soldiers are leaving, cheering is heard in the distance. Everyone joins in as Escamillo the matador sweeps in and recounts his latest triumph in the corrida, singing the famed “ Toréador Song ” (“ Votre toast ”). He is immediately drawn to Carmen and gallantly asks her name so that he might have it on his lips during his next bullfight . She plays hard-to-get but flirts with him nonetheless, annoying Zuniga, who leaves in a huff.

Escamillo then departs, surrounded by his crowd of admirers. Britannica Lists & Quizzes Carmen, Frasquita, and Mercédès meet with their coconspirators, Le Dancaïre and Le Remendado, to plan a smuggling operation (Quintet: “ Quand il s’agit de tromperie ”). But Carmen will not join them in their venture, because she is in love. The others tease her, but she is resolute. As she explains that the man she loves is a soldier who went to prison for her, José is heard singing a dragoon song in the distance. The gypsies look outside; Frasquita and Mercédès think him handsome, and Dancaïre thinks he will make a good smuggler. Carmen promises to try to persuade him to come. The others then leave her to meet José alone. José is thrilled to see Carmen again after two months in prison, but he becomes jealous when she tells him that she sang and danced for the soldiers. To calm him, she begins to dance for him, playing castanets .

He interrupts her when he hears a bugle blowing, but Carmen thinks it a fine accompaniment and keeps dancing. José now insists that he must go to his quarters. Carmen flies into a rage and tells him that he does not really love her. To convince her that he does, he shows her the flower she threw to him and declares his passion for her (Flower Song: “ La Fleur que tu m’avais jetée ”). Carmen says he must prove his love by coming with her to the mountains to live a life of freedom. He nearly succumbs to her but rouses himself and bids her farewell. As he is leaving, however, Zuniga knocks at the door. When no one opens it, he bursts in, sees José, and drunkenly chides Carmen for choosing a common soldier over an officer. He orders José to leave, but José refuses, and the men begin to fight. Carmen calls for help. Dancaïre, Remendado, and the rest of the gypsies appear and disarm Zuniga. Carmen mocks Zuniga for his bad timing, for now they must keep him with them to avoid being caught.

Zuniga submits with good grace and is escorted out. At this point, José has no choice but to accompany the gypsies. Act III Opium Wars The smugglers’ encampment in the mountains. Carmen and her friends cautiously make camp in their mountain hiding place. Dancaïre goes to make sure the way is clear for them to transport their contraband . José, meanwhile, dejectedly thinks of his mother down in the valley. Carmen, annoyed, tells him to go home to his mother. José begins to threaten her, and she tells him that perhaps he will kill her. When he refuses to answer, she remarks that it does not matter, for fate is the master. Frasquita and Mercédès read their fortunes in the cards; when Carmen does so, she sees only death in her future. Dancaïre returns to report that the road is clear, but there are three customs agents nearby. He orders José to go up the mountain to watch their belongings. Carmen, Frasquita, and Mercédès suggest flirtatiously that they will take care of the customs agents (“ Quant au douanier ”).

Micaëla now arrives; José’s mother has sent her to look for him. But she is afraid, both of the smugglers and of Carmen, and asks God for protection (“ Je dis que rien ne m’épouvante ”). She sees José in the distance and calls to him, but he lifts his gun and fires at an intruder. She hides in fear. José arrives, holding Escamillo, the intruder, at gunpoint. Escamillo introduces himself to José, who recognizes the bullfighter and greets him warmly, warning him that he ought to be more careful. Escamillo explains that his foolhardiness is due to his being in love with a gypsy named Carmen. José suppresses his shock as Escamillo relates that Carmen had loved a soldier who had deserted for her, but the affair was now over, for Carmen’s loves do not last more than six months. When José questions Escamillo, he declares that he loves her madly. José warns Escamillo that one must pay for taking a gypsy from her people, and when Escamillo gaily replies that he is willing to pay, José pulls out a knife.

It dawns on Escamillo that José is the very soldier he’s been describing, and he takes out his own knife. José manages to get the advantage, but the fight is stopped by the arrival of Carmen and the others. Charmed to have had Carmen save his life, Escamillo invites everyone to the bullfight. He ambles off as Dancaïre and Remendado restrain José, who warns Carmen not to push him too far. Suddenly Remendado notices a woman hiding nearby. José is shocked to see that it is Micaëla. She explains that she has come to find him for his mother’s sake and begs him to return home. Carmen urges him to do so. José accuses her of wanting to run off with a new lover and declares that they will never be separated. But he resolves to leave with Micaëla when she reveals that his mother is dying. As he leaves, he assures Carmen that they will see each other again. In the distance, Escamillo is heard singing his toreador song. When Carmen tries to join Escamillo, José threateningly bars her way. Then he goes off with Micaëla. Act IV Outside the corrida in Sevilla.

Peddlers hawk their wares as the crowd waits for the bullfight to begin. A group of children rush in to announce that the procession of matadors is on its way (“ Les voici! Voici la quadrille! ”). Bringing up the rear is Escamillo, with a richly dressed Carmen on his arm. They declare their love for each other. Escamillo enters the stadium . Carmen is about to follow him, but Frasquita and Mercédès warn her that José is hiding in the crowd. She sees him and says she will wait and speak to him. Her friends urge her to be careful and follow the crowd into the stadium. Carmen calmly faces José and tells him that she is not afraid of him. He replies that he is there not to threaten her but to beg her to come away with him. She tells him that it is all over between them. José desperately pleads with her, but she refuses, even knowing that he will kill her. He still cannot believe that she does not love him anymore; he offers to become an outlaw again and do anything she wants if she will only stay with him.

She refuses to leave with him, stating that she was born free and will die free. When she hears the crowd inside cheering Escamillo, she tries to enter the stadium, but José stops her and, in a rage, asks her if she loves Escamillo. Defiantly, she declares that she does and frees herself. José stops her again and asks, for the last time, if she will come with him. Once again she refuses, throwing away the ring he had given her. As the crowd again cheers Escamillo, she turns to go into the stadium, and José stabs her. He falls to his knees beside her body, and, as the crowd files out of the stadium, he admits to killing her and despairingly calls out to her corpse. Bizet: Carmen The subject of our Spring 2003 special project is Bizet's perennial favorite, Carmen. Carmen (1875) composed by Georges Bizet (1838-1875) based on the novella Carmen (1845) by Prosper Mérimée adapted as a libretto by H. Meilhac & L.

Halévy music by Georges Bizet first performed Paris Opéra-Comique, March 3, 1875 audience scandalized by opera's "obscenity" and "immorality" strong characterization, especially portrayal of sexual passion and jealousy, and powerfully realistic drama Carmen, opera | Details | AllMusic AllMusic google+ Description by Rovi Staff The reception history of Georges Bizet 's final dramatic work, Carmen, is rife with ironies. Although almost unanimously condemned by Parisian critics after its first performances in 1875 for its overt sexuality and graphic final scene, Carmen intrigued a number of sophisticated minds and ultimately reached the public in a way that perhaps no other opera has. Bizet 's aim in composing Carmen had been to transform the flaccid, moralistic bourgeois genre of opéra comique into a more sophisticated type of staged work. With a libretto by Ludovic Halévy and Henri Meilhac , Carmen survives in no single authoritative version despite its enormous popularity and influence. Guiraud converted the original sections of spoken dialogue into recitative for the 1875 Vienna performances.

In recent years the original version has made a striking comeback, and one can argue that it is far more telling dramatically than the traditional version with the recitatives. There is also a popular orchestral suite drawn from the opera, and several violin and piano fantasies on its themes also exist. Carmen is cornerstone item in any opera collection. It is ironic that Bizet composed one of music's most evocative landscapes of Spain without ever having been there. Bizet based his opéra comique on Prosper Mérimée 's story, Carmen, which had appeared in October 1845. Librettists Halévy and Meilhac emphasized the exotic characters of Mérimée's story and retained the themes of social class distinctions, overt sexuality, and misogyny that emerge so forcefully in Mérimée's model. Bizet gave musical expression to the libretto using recurring motives, a distinctive melodic style, and manipulations of genre conventions to give each character a musical significance and a unique expressive idiom.

The opera's prelude introduces some of the most important themes, including Escamillo's toreador music and an exotic and sinewy chromatic motive that permeates the opera as a musical symbol for both Carmen's character and the insurmountable power of fate. The gypsy fortune-teller Carmen sings in dance numbers, such as the habanera ("L'amour est un oiseau rebelle") and the seguidilla ("Près des ramparts de Seville") of Act One, and the Gypsy song ("Les tringles des sisters tintaient") of Act Two. Traversing boundaries of diatonic harmony, the sultry chromaticism of Carmen's habanera theme underscores her status as both ethnic outsider and sexually adventuresome female. In this she stands in sharp contrast to Micaëla, whose Act Three aria ("Je sais que rien ne m'épouvante") is set in the ternary form of the elevated bel canto French grand opera aria.

The bullfighter Escamillo announces his trade and masculine prowess in the rollicking Act Two toreador song ("Toréador, en garde!"), which carries the musical suggestion of battle in its fanfare opening and insistent march rhythm. Don José's musical styles reflect different levels in his descent from dutiful soldier to the underworld of obsession. In Act One, Don José sings in a duet with Micaëla ("Ma mère, je la vois"), adopting her elevated lyrical vocal style. In Act Two, after his imprisonment, Don José sings a more popular march-like tune ("Halte-là! Qui va là? Dragon d'Alcala"), reflecting his lower social status. His angst-ridden wailings in the opera's final scene defy clear formal arrangement and convey the psychological turmoil of an obsessed and defeated individual. Thus did Bizet forge a work that both summed up the musical resources available to him and had enough color and sheer melodic attractiveness to insinuate itself permanently into the public mind. Carmen, indeed, has been the subject of several popular-music adaptations over the years. Parts/Movements No. 2, Sur la place, chacun passe No.

3, Avec la garde montante No. 4a, La Cloche a sonne, nous des ouvrieres No. 4b, La voila! Voila la Carmencita! No. 5, L'amour est un oiseau rebelle [Habanera] No. 6, Carmen! sur tes pas nous nous pressons tous No. 7, Parle-moi de ma mère! No. 8, Au secours! No. 10a, Près des remparts de Séville [Seguidilla] No. 10b, Voice l'orde No. 11a, Entr'acte [Les Dragons d'Alcala] No. 11b, Les tringles des sistres tintaient [Gypsy Song] No. 11c, Danse bohème No. 11d, Vous avez quelque chose No. 12a, Vivat, vivat le toréro! No. 12b, Votre toast je peux vous le rendre [Toreador's Song] No. 13, Nous avons en tete une affaire! No. 14, Halte-là! Qui va là? No.

15a, Je vais danser en votre honneur No. 15b, Au quartier! pour l'appel No. 15c, La fleur que tu ma'vais jetée [Flower Song] No. 15d, Non! tu ne ma'aimes pas! No. 16, Holà! Carmen! No. 17b, Écoute, compagnon, écoute [March of the Smugglers] No. 17c, Notre métier est bon No. 18a, Mêlons! Coupons! [Card Scene] No. 18b, Voyons, que j'essaie à mon tour No. 18c, En vain, pour éviter les réponses amères No. 19, Quant au douanier c'est notre affaire No. 20, Je dis que rien ne m'épouvante [Nocturne] No. 21, Je suis Escamillo No. 22a, Entr'acte [Aragonaise] No. 22b, À deux cuartos! No.

23, Les voici, voici la quadrille [March of the Toreadors] No. 24, Si tu m'aimes, Carmen No. 25, C'est toi!

Question: Who composed the opera ‘Carmen’ (1875)?
Answer: Georges BIZET