Carrrrmen!
“… and it is a longstanding tradition that the Singing Hoosiers provide the chorus for this opera.”
Opera, you say?
It was the fall of 1977, my sophomore year at Indiana University. Bob Stoll, the director of the Singing Hoosiers (think Glee for college students; indeed, Ryan Murphy was a Singing Hoosier) had just broken the news that that a factory girl named Carmen was in our future.
Here’s Mr. Stoll (who passed away in 2020) warming us up before a performance:
Here’s a quick refresher in case your mind wasn’t immediately overcome with the brilliant music:
Georges Bizet was only 36 when his opera premiered in 1875. He broke ground with Carmen, as he took a simple love story and packed it full of ne’er-do-wells and scoundrels.
As chorus members, we were divided into three groups:
- Factory girls
- Soldiers
- Mountain people
The soldiers definitely had the best costumes.
In brief, the cigarette-factory girls are on break and light up, to the delight of the soldiers. Carmen is quite the looker, and she knows it. She gets in a cat fight, flirts with soldier Don Jose, and gets him thrown in jail.
Well, things get complicated. A group of gypsies plan a smuggling spree. They try to get Carmen to join the illicit behavior. She holds back, since Don Jose is about to get out of prison. Since he’s a soldier, she wants to play nice.
For now, anyway.
Big surprise: That doesn’t happen. Carmen and Don Jose both end up in the mountains with the other smugglers.
Let me pause for a moment and say that my personal recollection – as a proud mountain person – is that we were simply poor folk. I don’t remember anything illegal going on … stop getting all Jean Valjean on us, Monsieur Bizet!
Back to the story. While Don Jose was in prison, Carmen and a bullfighter named Escamillo start making googly eyes at each other.
Because what could be more attractive than a man in tights stabbing a moo-cow’s daddy?
Here’s a music-box rendition of the Toreador March you won’t want to miss:
Turns out Don Jose has mommy issues (which, as the mother of three sons, I find quite charming). When summoned by her, he heads back down the mountain and into town.
In Act IV, Carmen and Escamillo parade on stage, all gussied up for a bull fight. A friend whispers to Carmen that Don Jose is back, and wants to have a chat. A decent sort, Carmen holds back as the crowd enters the arena.
Don Jose is the jealous type. He’s not okay with Carmen’s refusal to get back together with him. But she’s totally into that bullfighter now. So Don Jose does the typical “if I can’t have you nobody can” thing and pulls out a dagger.
Here’s something I completely forgot about – one of our performances had to be rescheduled due to a massive snowstorm:
I hope this particular memory is correct (if not, please correct me in the Comments section, below).
My strongest memory from Carmen is that during the final scene, the dagger that was about to be used to kill Carmen flew offstage.
Completely offstage.
The dagger was not an optional prop. Don Jose needed it to kill Carmen. What else could he do – strangle her?
The crew backstage knew they had to act fast. They had just seconds to figure out what to do.
Eagle-eyed audience members may have noticed a broomstick, flat on the stage floor, slowly sliding the dagger back on stage.
That backstage crew got the job done. And so did Don Jose. Sorry, Carmen.
Georges Bizet, poor lad, thought his opera was a total flop. The snooty critics dismissed it as vulgar. Women smoking? All that lust? Disgusting!
Three months into the production, Bizet dropped dead of a heart attack. Within a year, his work would be proclaimed a masterpiece.
Isn’t that always the way?
Speaking of critics, here’s what the Indianapolis News had to say about our performance:
Critics aside, let’s give Monsieur Bizet le dernier mot:
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