Ma Carmen adorée

I have a very special relationship with the opera Carmen. It was the first opera that I saw live (I was 12, it was at NY City Opera). It was the very opera I was ever paid to sing in (Chorus/San Antonio Festival 1984) and Don Jose was the last complete opera role that I ever sang it public.

I can't remember a performance that has failed to move me in some way (and maybe it is just nostalgia), but there are a few things that get up my gander a bit.

• Don Jose is not a wimp! He is a complex, troubled fellow with a temper that he cannot control. He is alarmingly devoted to his mother, and wants desparately to be in love with Micaela. But the truth is that he cannot control his baser instincts and that is why he ultimately falls under Carmen's spell


• Micaela is not a wimp! In the original libretto, the guide admires her strength in facing a herd of bull. He won't go where she feels destined to go. Her aria is a prayer for strength, but she is fiercely to committed to Jose and his mother and knows where her duty lies.


• Some cuts are inexcusable. The back and forth between Jose and Carmen in the 2nd act must not only be complete, it should be extended by the bit included by Oeser in his otherwise questionable "critical" edition. She taunts him, she guilts him and it is her questioning his devotion that causes the flare up of his dangerous temper.


• Carmen is not a stereotype. The hip-swinging gyspy just makes me mad. She is complex and seductive. She knows the power that she has over men and uses it carefully and dangerously. To reduce her to a slut (which she is not) diminishes her power.

That's enough for now.