Carmen opera plot9/7/2023 ![]() ![]() In the next three years, it was produced in almost all the major opera houses of Europe. Within months, a second production of Carmen in Vienna was acclaimed as a masterpiece. On the night of Carmen’s 31st performance Bizet died of a heart attack, still believing his opera was a failure. Yet, despite Bizet’s resignation (“a definite and hopeless flop”), it had a respectable run of 37 performances that season alone, added to which Bizet was made a Chevalier De La Légion D’honneur and received from his publisher the fairly hefty sum of 25,000 francs for the score. Unprepared for the sight of women smoking on stage, the “low-life” characters and its theme of erotic obsession, the critics damned Carmen as “vulgar”, “undramatic” and “contemptible”. Its critical reception dealt Bizet a terrible blow. Ironically, this most famous of mezzo-soprano arias was plagiarised by Bizet from El Arreglito, a song by Spanish composer Sebastián Yradier (1809-65).Ĭarmen was first performed on March 3, 1875. The original Carmen, Célestine Galli-Marié, instructed him to rewrite the famous Habanera no fewer than 14 times to accommodate her voice.
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