Killing Carmen: Thoughts on a Classic

I’m lucky. It has never been a requirement of mine that I like, or even particularly admire, anyone in order to find them fascinating enough to want to watch or read about them. This is as true of fictional characters as it is of historical, or even currently alive persons.

I think somehow many of us feel “guilty” for watching things like Carmen because we’re preoccupying ourselves with a central character possessing so little, if anything, perceived as redeemable. And yet Carmen remains an eternally interesting character, and, as with many other colorful criminals or outcasts of society, we become fascinated . . . mesmerized even . . . by the way they work in lives vastly different than our own.
As with any stage creature, Carmen opens herself to a wide variety of interpretations, and while many view her as being an archetypal character (in the Jungian sense), I don’t think she is. Not at all, in fact.  I believe in Carmen less as a symbol, and more as genuinely, deeply flawed character who lives out her days according to her own set of principles: the rest of the world be damned. While she may come across as over-the-top, nothing she does, according is ever really too much - or enough so as to make her the comically unbelievable character many choose to see her as. Still, all of the symbolsim we typically associate with the archetype of such a character can actually add to our enjoyment, even when we don't fully grasp it, or disagree with one another as to what it all means.

When first we meet our Carmencita, she’s working at the cigarette factory, and we like her.  We like her mostly because she's colorful, and likes to sing and dance a lot. But, ah, she also likes to fight. She's what some might call a spicy lady.  While she may seem like a fun girl who just gets into the occasional bit of trouble, the fact of the matter is this:  from the outset, Carmen is a criminal.  

The most famous number in the opera, the Habanera, is  simply Carmen taking in the lay of the land, scoping out a possible escape from the trouble she's already planned on getting into. She can't help herself.  As she sings and mesmerizes the crowd, she identifies José as someone she can use; a man to trick - to manipulate into doing whatever it is she needs him to do. She senses through instinct or her powers of observation he will likely do her bidding, possibly most willingly.  Does she sense his weakness? His criminal past? Ever shrewdly attuned to all that is around her, Carmen senses this from the very beginning.  It's not too far a stretch for us to believe she'd initiate a factory fight to achieve this end, and so it becomes a preliminary exercise: use her seduction of José  to gain his assistance for her subsequent escape - an escape from a situation of her own creation. It's all part of her game, and quite possibly a test to see how strongly her hold will be on this deeply troubled man, who himself is using the military as an escape from his own criminal past.

I'm convinced Carmen always looks ahead to her future - and always foresees trouble. Of course she does - it's all she knows.

I've never bought into Carmen being as carefree as she pretends to be, or is always singing about. There are reasons she consults and holds stock in the tarot: she is bound by fate, and ever aware of this. Those who believe in the romance between José and Carmen are buying into something that just isn’t there and thus, not unlike  José, have been seduced by something not entirely attainable.

Like many criminals Carmen appears to be an adrenaline junky, always obsessively moving on to the next bigger thing; bigger risks and bigger highs to feed and satisfy that addiction. The adrenaline rush which comes from criminal activity can certainly be experienced by other means, for example, extreme athletics, risk-taking activities such as cliff diving, or parachuting and, of course, sex.  Adrenaline junkies are forever looking for that next, bigger rush, so ever push themselves further and further, often to the point of their demise, which is of course, the ultimate rush.  I hold this is precisely what happens to Bizet's anti-heroine. You may disagree.

I believe Carmen’s attraction to Escamillo is, however entirely different.  It is instant because here, for lack of a better word, is an Übermensch - a man who, advantaged through superior intelligence and artificial weaponry - plays a game involving a fight-to-the-death of another physically powerful animal – a male from another species - a bull.  Escamillo is a creature who, like Carmen, appears to have no natural fear of death, he challenges it . and (so far) always wins. In this regard, as exciting as it sounds, winning the bullfight would seem to be only the penultimate orgasmic experience, the ultimate rush achieved only through death itself.

Carmen's actions, like self-orchestratng her orgasme final are not unlike Escamillo's. Her bull is Don José,and she has selected this bull as her executioner. 

Like many criminals Carmen appears to be an adrenaline junky, always obsessively moving on to the next bigger thing; bigger risks and bigger highs to feed and satisfy that addiction. The adrenaline rush which comes from criminal activity can certainly be experienced by other means, for example, extreme athletics, risk-taking activities such as cliff diving, or parachuting and, of course, sex.  Adrenaline junkies are forever looking for that next, bigger rush, so ever push themselves further and further, often to the point of their demise, which is of course, the ultimate rush.  I hold this is precisely what happens to Bizet's anti-heroine. You may disagree.

I believe Carmen’s attraction to Escamillo is, however entirely different.  It is instant because here, for lack of a better word, is an Übermensch - a man who, advantaged through superior intelligence and artificial weaponry - plays a game involving a fight-to-the-death of another physically powerful animal – a male from another species - a bull.  Escamillo is a creature who, like Carmen, appears to have no natural fear of death, he challenges it . and (so far) always wins. In this regard, as exciting as it sounds, winning the bullfight would seem to be only the penultimate orgasmic experience, the ultimate rush achieved only through death itself.

 Carmen's actions her self-orchestrateing her orgasme final are not at all unlike Escamillo's. Her bull is Don José,and she has selected this man as her executioner. 

Like many criminals Carmen appears to be an adrenaline junky, always obsessively moving on to the next bigger thing;  bigger risks and bigger highs to feed and satisfy that addiction. The adrenaline rush which comes from criminal activity can certainly be experienced by other means, for example, extreme athletics, risk-taking activities such as cliff diving, or parachuting and, of course, sex.  Adrenaline junkies are forever looking for that next, bigger rush, so ever push themselves further and further, often to the point of their demise, which is of course, the ultimate rush.  I hold this is precisely what happens to Bizet's anti-heroine. You may disagree.

I believe Carmen’s attraction to Escamillo is, however entirely different.  It is instant because here, for lack of a better word, is an Übermensch - a man who, advantaged through superior intelligence and artificial weaponry - plays a game involving a fight-to-the-death of another physically powerful animal – a male from another species - a bull.  Escamillo is a creature who, like Carmen, appears to have no natural fear of death, he challenges it . and (so far) always wins. In this regard, as exciting as it sounds, winning the bullfight would seem to be only the penultimate orgasmic experience, the ultimate rush achieved only through death itself.

 Carmen's actions her self-orchestrateing her orgasme final are not at all unlike Escamillo's. Her bull is Don José,and she has selected this man as her executioner. Taunting and humiliating him, she increases the element of danger and violence to the point where, physically and psychologically, they arrive at a blistering point of no return.  There is nothing left for her to do other than that which she set out to, very likely from the start.  

Until recently, Don José, more often than not, came off as a bit of a loser in a messy romantic entanglement, a "good boy led astray by the evil, witchy woman." The truth, however, is  José is bad news from the get go.  A violent, ill-tempered murderer who killed before the opera begins, and ends the evening by killing again.  "But oh, the Flower Song . . .how could anyone evil sing one of the most beautiful arias in opera?" Right.

José and Carmen should feel like a bad habit for each other as we witness his true violent nature revealing itself little-by-little, until his full, mad fury is unleashed in the opera's final moments.

That Carmen often uses sex to get everything she “wants” is, at minimum, symbolically interesting, not to mention more than just a bit disturbing. One needs only consider how her demise is achieved: (a) the violent plunging of a dagger into her; and (b) outside of the bull fighting arena.

Carmen never asks to be liked, but, like a beautiful, poisonous spider, she lures us into her web, making us think she may have something pretty to offer. She doesn’t. That appearance, much like the music Bizet gives her, is all façade. What she really offers is a bloody, violent, unromantic, and ultimately irredeemable, look into our own baser nature which, while perhaps not pretty, is endlessly fascinating.

 (Photos: Kate Aldrich as Carmen/Jonas Kaufmann and Richard Troxell as  José).