Carmen (Mérimée)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Carmen is the title of a novella by the French writer Prosper Mérimée (1803-1870) , published in 1847 .

It forms the basis for the libretto for Georges Bizet 's opera of the same name , written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy in 1875 . Carmen has also been adapted several times for ballet . The Latin word carmen means “song song”, “magic poetry” or “oracle verse”, so that the name Carmen has a desired connotation.

content

Framework story

On a trip through Andalusia , the narrator meets a stranger whom he soon considers to be a wanted robber. Since he behaves as a friend to the narrator, he helps him to escape from soldiers. A few months later, the narrator learns of the arrest and impending execution of the robber Don José. When visiting the prison, the narrator learns his life story.

Internal narration

The Basque José Lizarrabengoa killed his opponent in a game and has to flee his home country. He comes to Andalusia, and working as a sergeant in the watch command at the tobacco factory in Seville , he meets the young gypsy Carmen. A fateful encounter that will tragically change the rest of his life.

While working in the tobacco factory, the impulsive Carmen stabs another woman with a knife in the course of an argument. The sergeant receives the order to transfer her to the city prison, but instead of doing his job conscientiously, José lets himself be charmed by the gypsy and enables her to escape. After four weeks of arrest and the demotion to an ordinary recruit, he meets Carmen again, and falls madly in love with her. In gratitude for his help in their escape, Carmen spends the night with him. Contrary to his expectations, he received a rebuff from her the next morning, with the explanation that they were not made for each other and that he should forget about them quickly.

He would have done best to heed her advice, but after a few weeks later - on duty as a guard - he was persuaded by her to turn a blind eye to a gang of gypsies during the smuggling operation, and then another of Carmen's lovers in an argument with him Saber kills, there is no turning back for him. He has to flee Seville. This time it's Carmen who helps him. He joins a smugglers' gang, for which Carmen is also responsible as a scout in criminal enterprises. He lives like a gypsy, makes friends with the smuggler existence and above all enjoys the frequent proximity to Carmen, whom he constantly proclaims his love for. She also says that she loves him.

With the appearance of the one-eyed Garcia, who is the actual leader of the gang and also Carmen's husband, José's jealousy and anger can no longer be stopped, becomes a murderer again and takes on Garcia's role. But now José has other plans, he wants to give up the gypsy and crook life and make a fresh start with Carmen in America. But she says that she no longer loves him, but the picador Lucas. Carmen refuses with all her might, she ignores his orders and his pleading leaves her cold: she would rather die than give up her free life as a gypsy. And so, after all his efforts have failed, José makes his fatal decision and kills her. Carmen doesn't fight back because she thinks it's her fate. Shortly after the murder, he reveals himself to a guard, confesses what he has done, and is then sentenced to death by hanging.

Sebastián Santos Rojas: Carmen statue in Seville (1973)

Historical background

According to Mérimée, his character Carmen was based on the mistress of a notorious Spanish deserter and bandit named Don José Maria Zempranito in the 1830s. He merged this with a certain Carmencita , the wife of a count of Montijo , who was a cigarette worker in Granada , until the count discovered her, fell in love with her and married her against the will of his family. As a guest of the Count's family, Mérimée had learned of this family scandal.

Current issues

Ballet adaptations

As early as 1845 or 1846, thirty years before Bizet's version of the opera, the subject was used by Marius Petipa for a ballet in Madrid: Carmen et son toréro . At the turn of the century, Carmen was one of the most successful ballets at the Alhambra Theater in London's West End . It was produced three times there: in 1897 with music by Georges Jacobi , in 1903 and 1912 with arrangements of Bizet's version of the opera. The choreographers were A. Bertrand, Lucia Cormani and Augustin Berger . In 1949 the French choreographer Roland Petit presented his Carmen version in London, followed in 1967 by Alberto Alonso with Maya Plisetskaya in the title role at the Moscow Bolshoi Ballet and in 1971 by John Cranko with Marcia Haydée at the Stuttgart Ballet . For the Moscow production, Plisetskaya's husband, the composer Rodion Shchedrin , wrote a new version for string orchestra and percussion instruments. Wolfgang Fortner composed the music for the full-length Stuttgart version of Cranko in collaboration with Wilfried Steinbrenner . It is based on collages that they took from Georges Bizet's opera and transposed them using the twelve-tone technique .

New versions are regularly presented to the present day, mostly based on the music of the Bizet opera of the same name, including works by the choreographers Antonio Gades (Paris 1983), José de Udaeta (Düsseldorf 1989), Mats Ek (Cullberg Ballet 1992), and Davide Bombana (Toulouse 2006, then also in Toronto and Vienna), Richard Wherlock (Basel 2010), Carlos Acosta ( Royal Ballet London 2015) and Mirko Mahr ( Leipzig Opera 2016).

Opera adaptation

  • Georges Bizet: Carmen. Opera in four acts Textbook French-German (Universal Library No. 9648) / Libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy based on the novella by Prosper Mérimée. Transl. And ed. by Henning Mehnert, Reclam (Stuttgart) 1997, ISBN 3-15-009648-0

Comic adaptation

In 1981 the French artist Georges Pichard adapted the story for a comic that was published by Edition Albin Michel in Paris and was also published in Germany in 1982 by Bahia Verlag in Munich (then in 1984 by Heyne Verlag ).

  • Georges Pichard: Carmen , Munich (Heyne-Bücher: 21; Heyne-Bildpaperback No. 11; from the French transl. By Dorian Link) 1984, ISBN 3-453-52091-2

Audiobook adaptation

In 2006 the story was set to music by Helmut Hafner. The audio book has been published by hoerbuch.cc-Verlag in Vienna.

  • Carmen and other short stories / Prosper Mérimée /; Translated by Arthur Schurig; edit by Alexander Kraft, speaker: Helmut Hafner, Vienna (hoerbuch.cc), 2006, ISBN 3-900037-74-4

Film adaptations

Literature on the character "Carmen"

  • Ulrich Herzog: Who is Carmen? Droemer Knaur 3836 non-fiction book, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-426-03836-6 .
  • Kirsten Möller: Carmen: A Myth in Literature, Film and Art . Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-412-20579-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Antonius Lux (ed.): Great women of world history. A thousand biographies in words and pictures . Sebastian Lux Verlag , Munich 1963, p. 95.
  2. ↑ BalletMet Columbus (Ohio Theater): Carmen, Choreography & Concept: David Nixon ( Memento from May 1, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) , October 23, 1997, accessed on March 27, 2016
  3. ^ Slovenian National Theater Maribor: Rodion Schtschedrin Paquita - Carmen , accessed on March 28, 2016
  4. ↑ Schott Music : Wolfgang Fortner: Profile ( Memento of the original from March 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.schott-musik.de archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed March 28, 2016
  5. ↑ Verena Franke: Volksoper: Choreographer Davide Bombana makes his debut with his "Carmen" ballet in Vienna on Saturday: "It's like playing the accordion" , November 19, 2009, accessed on March 28, 2016
  6. ↑ Martina Wohlthat: Richard Wherlock's ballet "Carmen" in the Basel Theater: Stierkampf und Strapse , Neue Zürcher Zeitung , January 18, 2010, accessed on March 28, 2016
  7. ↑ Jann Parry: Royal Ballet - Carmen, Viscera, Afternoon of a Faun, Tchaikovsky pas de deux - London , DanceTabs, October 29, 2015, accessed on March 28, 2016
  8. ↑ Boris Michael Gruhl: Daring and Winning. “Carmen” as a ballet at the Musical Comedy of the Leipzig Opera. , tanznetz.de, February 28, 2016, accessed on March 28, 2016