“Give me a laundry list and I will set it to music.” These words capture the essence and facility of the Italian composer and bon vivant Gioacchino Rossini. As the dominant figure in Italian opera in the first half of the nineteenth century, Rossini enjoyed an unusual level of success and popularity throughout his composing career. L’Italiana in Algeri (The Italian Girl in Algiers), as so often was the case in Rossini’s life, was the result of a whirlwind compositional process.

In 1813 Rossini was engaged by the impresario Giovanni Gallo of the Venetian Teatro di San Benedetto (today known as the Teatro Rossini) to compose a replacement opera for a commission that was not delivered on time. With time short, Rossini used a libretto by Angelo Anelli previously set by the lesser-known composer Luigi Mosca, and created the work in about twenty-seven days, with Gallo hovering frantically over the composer the entire time. As Rossini wrote to a friend once about his compositional process, “nothing primes inspiration more than necessity, [as…] the prodding of an impresario tearing his hair. In my time, all the impresarios in Italy were bald at thirty.” This hugely successful comedy was greeted at its premiere with, in the words of one reviewer, “deafening, and continuous general applause.”

The opera is set in Algiers, which was part of the Ottoman Empire. Though Italian Girl is a delightfully frothy comedy, the story has its origins in some rather violent history. The Barbary pirates, based in the North African states, were the scourge of the Mediterranean. They attacked ships from all European nations, even ranging as far north as Iceland. At one point, Algiers was rumored to harbor as a many as 20,000 captured slaves. Barbary pirates would raid coastal areas and capture slaves, then offer them back to their families for a hefty ransom. If the ransom was not met, the captives would disappear into the slave world of North Africa. The Italians in Italian Girl in Algiers came from the coastal town of Livorno. Lindoro, the hero of Italian Girl, has been made a slave to the Bey, or “governor,” of Algiers. His fearless fiancée Isabella has travelled to Algiers to effect a rescue, the only recourse for captives whose ransom was not met.

Isabella is the first of Rossini’s dream trio of roles for mezzo-sopranos (Rosina from Barbiere and La Cenerentola complete the group), who more often than not in opera are assigned the roles of young boys or villainesses. Isabella is bold, intrepid, and shrewd, and easily outwits her buffoonish counterparts, her doltish admirer and sidekick Taddeo and the autocratic Bey Mustafà, sung by a basso buffo or comic bass. She proves that feminine wiles triumph over masculine bluster any day, and lets nothing stand in the way of her reunion with her true love Lindoro, a standard sentimental Rossini tenor.

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Europe was swept by passion for the exotic, particularly from the Ottoman Empire. Music alla turca (in the Turkish style) and Oriental theatrical subject matter made their way into compositions of the period, in such works as Mozart’s opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Abduction from the Seraglio) and the Janissary march in the final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. One of the influences that became a permanent part of Western symphonic music was the addition of characteristic percussion instruments associated with Turkish military bands to the symphony orchestra, including the triangle, the bass drum, and the cymbals. These instruments figure prominently in the music of Rossini, particularly in the famous “Rossini Crescendo,” a device used to build sound gradually through increasing the number of instruments, and by diminishing note duration in vocal lines.

Though not as well-known as some of Rossini’s later works, L’Italiana is filled with musical highlights. A glorious solo horn introduces Lindoro’s lyric and relentlessly difficult aria “Languir per una bella,” one of the most challenging arias composed for a Rossini tenor. The first act of Rossini’s comedies typically end with a frenzied ensemble but none of them are as ridiculous and hilarious as the stretto, or “home stretch,” of the Italian Girl first act finale. The dramatic situation between couples has become extremely complex, and all characters comment on the tangled state of affairs. Elvira, Mustafà’s wife, begins the mania with the 46 line “I have a bell ringing in my head that sounds din, din, din” and the entire cast takes up the idea of nonsense syllables to express their sheer stupefaction. Finally, Isabella’s second act patriotic exhortation, “Pensa alla patria (think of the homeland)” is a bold statement of Italian patriotism. Prior to Verdi’s famous chorus from Nabucco, “Va, pensiero”, this aria was found in music-boxes, barrel-organs, and on everyone’s lips as one of Italy’s most popular anthems.

With its slapstick comedy juxtaposed with honest and heartfelt sentiment, L’Italiana in Algeri conveys, in the words of Rossini’s biographer Stendhal, “a cool freshness, which, measure by measure, makes us smile with delight.”

Dr. Carol Anderson is the Principal Coach for Utah Symphony | Utah Opera.

A few months ago I was matching concerts together for our new mini-series packages and had a fun thought – we have thousands of fans on Facebook and another big group of followers on Twitter. What if we let them vote on the concerts that we have next season and put together a series as a group? Kind of like a mass Design-A-Series subscription.

Well, we decided to go ahead and do it, and we put the poll up on Facebook yesterday. We’ve already had a pretty good number of fans vote (Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is leading currently, which was probably a given). Once our Facebook Fans have had a chance to vote on their three favorites, we’re going to put up a new poll for our Twitter followers and let them choose the fourth concert in the series. The mini-series, called “Fan Favorites,” will go on sale starting with the Design-A-Series and other mini-series in May, but watch our Facebook and Twitter pages for a special offer on this series just for our fans and followers!

If you’d like to vote, the link is available on our Facebook page (be sure and become a fan while you’re there!). Twitter followers can begin voting next week – once we know what the first three concerts will be. Once the concerts are chosen, we’ll see what we can do to put together some meetups (or tweetups) for our Facebook Fans and Twitter Followers.

Are you looking for an important way you can help your community? We invite you to join Utah Symphony | Utah Opera for Orchestras Feeding America, the second annual national food drive by America’s symphony orchestras. Last year, with more than 250 orchestras representing all 50 states, Orchestras Feeding America was the single largest orchestra project serving communities nationwide, collecting over 200,000 pounds of food for local communities. Here in Utah we collected more than 1,400 pounds of food for the Utah Food Bank.

After such a successful food drive last year, we’re excited to take part in Orchestras Feeding America again this year. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Utah is ranked 4th in the nation for the highest rate of food insecurity. More than 345,700 individuals are at risk of missing or skipping a meal due to a lack of resources.

Utah Symphony | Utah Opera staff members and volunteers will collect non-perishable food prior to the concerts on Friday, March 5th and Saturday, March 6th from 6:30–8 PM in the lobby of Abravanel Hall. The food will be donated to the Utah Food Bank. All those who donate, will receive a 20% discount coupon for a selected future concert.

When you come to Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 4, please bring some non-perishable food with you. Even if you’re not coming to the concert, take a few minutes out of your Friday or Saturday evening and drop some food off at Abravanel Hall!

RUTH THE COMPOSER
Most of her compositions, including her masterpieces such as the String Quartet of 1931, date from the 20s and 30s, before the tragic depression hit that led to her and her husband’s introduction to American folk music. Her music of this time is known for dissonance. She describes her self-preference to “sprinkling sevenths and ninths plentifully and insistently, and observing or breaking the solemn rules of harmony with equal regularity (her words!).” A critic described her as being able to “sling dissonances like a man.” Before you start freaking out about dissonances and “ugly” sounding music, give the Andante for Strings (the fully orchestrated version of the third movement of her 1931 String Quartet) a listen.

This deeply beautiful work is comprised of mysterious-sounding pitch clusters (notes close together in pitch that sort of move together as one voice) that are dissonant, but are also beautiful and full of enigma. The five sections of the orchestra rise together in one mass wall of sound both melodically in terms of pitch (i.e. it’s getting progressively higher) and in terms of dynamics (i.e. it gets progressively louder). Suddenly, at right about the golden mean incidentally, the five voices suddenly explode into a moment of virtuosity that gradually moves back down as one mass, again both melodically (the pitch lowers) and dynamically (the sound gets quieter), until it ends almost silently. Very Zen. If you allow yourself to be lost in the passion and tension as the orchestral mass sound rises to its climax, explodes, and then ends in silence, you will experience the intense beauty that so moved Maestro Varga when he discovered this work two years ago.

Now Rissolty, Rossolty comes from an entirely different place compositionally. It is one of just a handful of works written in her post-child bearing years and therefore occurs after she had discovered folk music and changed her entire musical outlook on life. The work is very much influenced by her new-found passion for American folk, and in many ways, marries this passion of folk music to her love of classical music. It was a commission from the CBS Radio Network. I unfortunately couldn’t find a recording available for your streaming pleasure online, but trust me, if you’re afraid of “that weird modern music,” you won’t be frightened of this work. It’s tuneful, folk-like, and Copland-esque. It features not one, but THREE popular folk songs one of which is actually called Rissolty, Rossolty. Incidentally, it is also the piece that her children sang over her grave when spreading her ashes. The folk songs eventually build and dissipate into a sort of “wall of sound” similar to the Andante for Strings but without the dissonance. The wall of sound builds and thickens and then suddenly dissipates into a little pianissimo “pluck, pluck” that will make the music nerds in the audience laugh. Now that you know it’s supposed to be funny, you can laugh too and all your neighbors will look at you in awe for getting the musical joke.

So there you go, Ruth Crawford Seeger. She was an incredible woman, beloved in her time and still incredibly important to music nerds of today. We study her and love her brief output of music as well as her contributions to perpetuating and collecting American folk music. Hopefully this blog entry isn’t your only exposure to Crawford Seeger, but an introduction to further study. Indeed, if you’d like to stretch your music muscles, you may enjoy this rather technical overview of her musical ouvre, written by my former teacher, Joseph N. Straus: http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/isam/rcstraus.html.

Ruth Crawford Seeger, age 23

At Utah Symphony, we’re all about making you happy and keeping things interesting. We accomplish that by programming many of your most favorite, beloved masterworks in a season, but we also try to program lesser-known works here and there. Partially in an effort to keep things interesting for both our orchestra, and you, our listeners, the act of programming a lesser-known composer or work is frankly pivotal to our successful growth as artists. You don’t want us passing out onstage from boredom do you?

The performances on February 12th and 13th will be an opportunity to hear two blockbuster masterworks: Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony with its famous second movement and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23, arguably the composer’s most popular concerto. And what’s the icing to this delicious evening? You’ll also get to hear two works by early twentieth century composer Ruth Crawford Seeger.

Now before you blow a gasket accusing us of “sneaking” in these two unknown works before two such popular and beloved pieces, and/or forcing you to eat your musical spinach with your sweets and fried food, you should be aware of two things:

1)    We do everything for a reason.
2)    If you get to know Crawford Seeger a bit, you might actually find these two works to be your highlight for the evening.

Gilbert Varga, Conductor

So why Ruth Crawford Seeger? What’s our reasoning? Maestro Gilbert Varga, the evening’s guest conductor, personally chose the composer and these two works (Rissolty, Rossolty and Andante for Strings, both of which happen to be Utah Symphony premieres). Crawford Seeger is an incredibly important and beloved composer among American music nerds, but in Europe, she is still virtually an unknown. Hence, Maestro Varga was only introduced to her music just two years ago by the critic Michael Steinberg who has since passed away. [The Maestro has dedicated this performance to Steinberg’s memory because of the musical introduction.] The piece Steinberg played for Maestro Varga was Crawford Seeger’s String Quartet from 1931. It is her most important and famous work. The third movement, in particular, blew him away. He was in shock that he had never heard of this composer, let alone that her music was so incredibly beautiful, challenging, and moving. He was even more ecstatic to learn that Crawford Seeger approved having an Orchestra perform the third movement as a stand-alone piece with the basses doubling the cello part. He knew he had to program her works in the near future, and we’re honored that he chose Utah Symphony as the platform.

You’ll love these pieces just as much as Maestro Varga does; all you need is just a little bit of education. So today, I’m going to tell you all about Ruth Crawford Seeger’s life, and then on Friday I will explain the two works on the program.

RUTH THE PERSON
If the second half of Ruth Crawford Seeger’s last name sounds familiar, then half our work is done here. Ruth Crawford-the-composer married Charles Seeger-the-composer-music-theorist-folk-music-scholar in 1932. Together they essentially became America’s first ethnomusicologists and catalogued and arranged literally thousands of America’s best folk music. Charles’s son from his first wife, Peter, was later to become one of America’s most preeminent folk singers in the 60s (you might recall songs such as Where Have the Flowers Gone? and Turn, Turn, Turn). Before they became nutso for folk, Ruth and Charles were both part of New York’s group of composers known as the “ultra-moderns.” Essentially, they were the first American composers to have a unique musical language completely divorced from what was happening in Europe. It’s not that they weren’t aware, it’s just that they chose to ignore what was going on “across the pond.” Crawford Seeger herself was initially very influenced by the works of Scriabin before she moved to New York and met the rest of the ultra-moderns as well as her future husband. Shortly after meeting and studying with Charles (he was her teacher and introduced her to his method of “dissonant counterpoint”), Crawford Seeger became the first woman to win a Guggenheim Fellowship for Composition. She shipped off to Europe in 1930, but true to her American ultra-modern roots, she interacted very little with the music scene of Berlin, and derided them as, “sickening sweet inanity.” I.e. the American music nerds were much cooler and more experimental—in her mind—than their contemporaries in Germany.

Her return to the US coincided with the Depression. Suddenly she and the rest of the ultra-moderns found themselves wondering if music had a place in light of such tragedy. Especially, they questioned if there was a purpose for their brand of experimental music. Charles and Ruth married in 1932, and shortly thereafter they became involved in political activism of the progressive left. They started to ask questions about accessibility and social responsibility and whether or not that challenged the relevance of “elitist” art. Ruth also gave birth to the first of three children spanning a period of five years during this period. Combining the demands of a young family along with questions about the place of musical art in light of the depression, Crawford Seeger slipped into a still much-lamented silence as a composer. She was only to write a few more works for the duration of her life (she died in 1952 from intestinal cancer).

In 1936 Charles Seeger took a WPA job that moved the family to Washington D.C.; a move that changed the family’s life physically and musically. The job was to work with John and Alan Lomax at the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress to preserve and teach American folk music. Their musical lives changed from “ultra-modern” to being 100% about folk. They lived, breathed, and ate it, and in doing so, essentially became America’s first ethnomusicologists as mentioned previously. Crawford Seeger herself published her own pioneering collection, American Folk Songs for Children, in 1948, designed for use in elementary school. This seminal text book of folk music is still used.

Come back on Friday for Part 2  of Discover Ruth Crawford Seeger – The Music.

Typically, the work I do for Utah Opera is completely behind the scenes – it’s my job to help fill the seats with people at Capitol Theatre, and I leave the stage work to the professionals. Carmen ended up being a completely difference experience for me though when Michelle Peterson, our Company Manager, asked if I’d be a super in Carmen. For those not familiar with the term, “super” pretty much means “extra” – someone who volunteers to walk around on the stage and act, usually carrying a spear or piece of furniture. Supers also don’t sing (although it’s hard not to hum along to the music in Carmen).

This wasn’t the first time she’d asked if I’d volunteer to do this. I was close to being in The Marriage of Figaro last March, but it was in the middle of our season subscription renewals (not to mention my birthday) and just bad timing. I wanted to do Don Pasquale in May (the cowboy costumes were pretty cool), but the director ended up just using the chorus and not needing many supers. When Michelle asked if I’d be in Carmen, it seemed like a great opera for me to make my debut on the Capitol Theatre stage. Not only is it the first opera I ever saw (my parents sat me down in front of the TV when I was seven or eight and had me watch the film version with Julia Migenes), but it is also one of the few operas out there where I already recognize the music and story. Because of that, being in it would be an opportunity to experience an opera I was already somewhat familiar with in a completely different way.

Never having done any real acting or stage work (unless you count Alki Middle School’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream), I was amazed at how quickly the opera came together once the cast arrived. Everyone seemed to show up all ready to go. Just before Christmas, Michelle emailed out the rehearsal schedule. I wasn’t expecting much of a time commitment (there’s a reason why supers are often simply referred to as “spear carriers”), but I’ve ended up spending a good 15 to 20 hours at rehearsals for my 2 minutes of stage time. The 20 hours is nothing though compared with what some of the supers have to do. Since I decided only to be in the parade (I’m one of the matadors), I only had to be at rehearsals for Act 4. The supers who are soldiers also had to be had a lot more rehearsals than me.

One of the most interesting parts of being a super is getting a costume. The costumes made by our costume shop are beautiful. I went to a costume fitting a week or so before the dress rehearsal and was given my first lesson on how to put on tights (apparently, matadors wear pink tights!). I also got a blue bull fighter costume. After the first dress rehearsal, the costume shop decided that my costume wasn’t flashy enough, so I came back and was refitted into a new costume that is really cool. Not only am I the only bullfighter with tassels on my pants (my wife’s favorite part of the costume), but the detail on the cape and jacket is amazing. I think it looks pretty cool, even if it isn’t something I’d wear out every day.

Working with the cast and directors has also been great. Many of the supers in this particular opera are fathers of the kids in the chorus. A lot of others are sons, husbands, boyfriends, brothers, and friends of USUO employees or Utah Opera chorus members. Most of us are in an opera for the first time - some others have been being supers in operas for decades. It’s an entertaining group – which is good because we spend a lot of time in the basement waiting for our turn on the stage.

I was worried that I’d be nervous when we finally went out on opening night, but rather than having anxiety, I’ve been having a lot of fun on the stage. Luckily, I don’t have to do much more than walk down the stairs and wave to the mayor. But still, it’s fun to be part of this talented group of people. Everyone seems to love what they’re doing, and I’ve gained a much greater appreciation for an art form that I wasn’t extremely familiar with before I started working for the company. Being a super is a lot of work for very little glory, but it’s definitely an experience I’m glad I’ve had.

Here are some photos of how supers were used in Carmen:

Most of the soldiers in Carmen were supers. These are the guys who put in the really long hours at rehearsals.

The Mayor and his wife were volunteer supers.

The Act 4 parade in Carmen used a lot of supers.

Some of the supers were Banderilleros.

And others were Picadors.

And here are the Matadors. I'm the one in the maroon costume.

1. Where are you from/raised?

• Swiss.
• Zambia—Africa born.
• Went to school in Zambia, Ivory Coast, and then Switzerland
• Musical education in Geneva, then Germany, Moscow

2. Where do you currently live? Geneva, with my family and kids

3. What is your musical background?

Flute player in Geneva.  I had several jobs in Humbola, Zurich, Munich, London. Spent 10 years as principal flutist in a chamber orchestra in Southern Europe

4. Do you have a favorite piece to play as a flutist?

I don’t play the flute any more, I stopped some years ago, all of a sudden, like an addicted heavy smoker… from one day to the other, but when I was a player, music by Bach has always been (and still is) the highest inspiration.

5. How did you become a conductor?

By accident. Never really thought of conducting until replacing a sick conductor. Did one performance for him, and then got a job to conduct in Switzerland.  My first real job was in Holland, Amsterdam, and BBC Wales—where I am currently.

6. Where/when did you study conducting?

I am a self-taught person… but was very influenced by Harnoncourt and Abbado, when I was a flute player, playing for them…

7. Who is your favorite conductor?

All the conductors who can do things I can’t… so many conductors….

8. Who is your favorite composer?

Always the composer I am studying at the moment… so just for this week it is Shostakovitch!

9. Do you listen to historical recordings when you prepare a new piece to conduct? Which conductors do you typically listen to?

I almost never listen to recordings to prepare, so if I do, I always try to find an interpretation done by old legendary maestri….

10. Do you have a favorite piece to conduct?

Same answer as before, this week it is Shostakovitch Symphony No 10, the week after will be Schubert “Tragic Symphony” etc… etc…

11. Why are you interested in the Utah Symphony?

A reputation is going to be built. It’s presumptuous to leave a legacy before starting, but the idea is to leave a very creative group of musicians interested in creating something big every week. It’s a huge challenge to move and motivate this massive group, bring energy to the orchestra and make them interested in all types of repertoire.

12. What is your vision for the Utah Symphony? What do you hope to accomplish here?

Alive. Interested. Passionate. Involved. Creative. You can add many things, not only in programming, but the way to look at education and in lifting hope of the community. A new MD is hope, new energy and a new way of looking at things. I can bring a lot to the orchestra and they can bring a lot to me. The combined energy will create an unbeatable team—raising our level of performing. I want to bring new energy back—and share that with as many people, otherwise there’s no sense. The whole is fantastic.

If there is one area where there are no limits, it is sound. We will raise our passion and way of sitting on chairs.  We will be working on sounds—passion is to work on clarity, enlightening the sound. Believe in the power and the energy of sounds. In comparing sound with wind—if you walk out to the wind, you smile, feel and perceive all emotions differently. There’s a different way of hoping and thinking after a walk in the wind. Music is the same. Even with today’s technology, nothing can replace live music, the specific moment in a concert hall when you feel this energy and how important live music is for us in general.

I will also focus on French composers: Bréval, Debussy; classical composers: Beethoven and definitely Haydn—he’s the father of classical music. Any orchestra that can play Haydn can play anything very well. I will also focus on Charles Ives, Anton Bruckner, and Stravinsky.

I want like to record as much as possible—my strongest intention is to record. Recording is an artistic image and way to attract more conductors to use the Utah Symphony. I would also like Utah Symphony to start commissioning. An orchestra has a mission to create and to help active listening.  I’ll try to put in a few surprises. The orchestra not only a museum, but a modern art museum.

13. What excites you about being in Salt Lake City?

We feel very much at home in Utah as in Switzerland.  The immensity of Salt Lake is bigger.  Like where Utah is big and close to the coast.  Love being in the nature. Feel very good in the city. My wife and I went hiking and used time to imagine ourselves as much as we could in the city. I am an avid skier—doesn’t hurt at all that the mountains are close to the city! I also run 3-4 times a week and can do it here.

In Salt Lake, there is something ready to start and you just need put the right natures and energies in the same line and things will develop. In America (course it’s a cliché), it’s an American dream that everything is possible—with a strong concept, you can move mountains, and with the energy in Utah in particular. Being a director in America is something I have wanted to happen in my life. The opportunity in Utah came at exactly the right time.

14. What are your non-musical hobbies? Being with my family, having dinners with friends, going to our house in South of France, watching Roger Federer and the football in general on TV, trying to finish the books I am starting, and definitely finishing the runs I try to do three times a week (except the two upcoming weeks in Utah… too busy!….)

See Thierry Fischer in action January 29 – 30! Brahms’ Violin Concerto and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 will be on the program.

Learn even more about Thierry Fischer here.

To celebrate having 1,000 Twitter followers we’re starting a new contest. Starting this week, you can enter to win free tickets to Utah Symphony | Utah Opera performances by “Tweeting for Tickets” on Twitter! Here’s how the contest works.

1. Follow Utah Symphony | Utah Opera on Twitter – http://twitter.com/usuo.

2. Watch our Twitter page. When we’re giving away tickets to a performance, you’ll see a Tweet from us that includes the phrase ”RT & follow to enter.” We’ll also do another Tweet with the deadline for the contest.

3. Retweet our entire Tweet to enter a drawing for the free tickets. You only need to Tweet the phrase once to enter the contest. You can Tweet it as often as you’d like, but one Tweet per Follower per day will be entered into the contest.

4. When the contest is over, we’ll announce a winner. Watch our page on Twitter closely to see if you’ve won. You’ll need to send a message to us through Twitter before the performance is passed with your contact information. We’ll contact you to arrange your tickets.

The winner will receive two tickets to the performance specified in the original Tweet. No purchase is necessary to enter the contest, and buying tickets won’t increase your chances of winning tickets. Seating is at the discretion of the ticket office.

For our first contest, we’re giving away a pair of tickets to the Monday or Wednesday performance of Carmen at Capitol Theatre. The winner will be announced on Saturday.

Carmen – what an opera! From being universally scorned at its premiere to today being one of the top four most frequently performed operas in America, this work has run the entire gamut. Central to its mystique is its title character, the woman Carmen. Often dismissed as more antagonist than protagonist and “ruiner” of the innocent Don José, perception of this woman is nearly as diverse a debate as that about the pronunciation of potato. Is she evil? A seductress? Fate/death-obsessed (and hence parochial)? Sex addict? Free spirit? Liberated woman/feminist? Victim? Suicide?

It’s rather amazing that a fictional character could spark such debate. Geoges Bizet’s librettists mostly adapted their story from the novella Carmen by Propser Mérimée who in turn was influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin. As any quick google search will tell you, the work was commissioned and premiered by the family-friendly Opéra-Comique of Paris despite much protestations from Adolphe de Leuven, the co-administrator of the Opéra-Comique. He eventually resigned in protest. As recalled by one of Carmen’s co-librettists, Ludovic Halévy:

“It was Bizet who, in 1873, had the idea of extracting an opera libretto from the admirable novella of Mérimée…I went to see Leuven and he actually interrupted me after the first sentence. ‘Carmen! Mérimée ’s Carmen! Isn’t she killed by her lover? And these bandits, gypsies, and girls working in a cigar factory! At the Opéra-Comique! The family theater, the theater of wedding parties … You’ll frighten our audience away. That’s impossible.’ I insisted and explained to Mr. Leuven that ours was a Carmen, to be sure, but a toned-down, softened Carmen, and that we had actually introduced some characters perfectly in keeping with the style of the opéra-comique, especially a young girl of great chastity and innocence. There were indeed gypsies, but of the humorous variety (they really weren’t). And Carmen’s death, the inevitable catastrophe at the end, would be sneaked in somehow at the conclusion of a lively and brilliant act, in broad daylight, on a holiday filled with processions, dances, and gay fanfares. Mr. Leuven acquiesced, but after a prolonged struggle. And when I left his office, he said: ‘Please try not to let her die. Death at the Opéra-Comique. That’s never happened before, do you hear, never. Don’t let her die, I implore you, my dear child.’”

Thankfully, Bizet himself didn’t allow Carmen to become so watered down as to loose its shock value. Its premiere was every bit as scandalous to the Opéra-Comique audience as de Leuven had feared, and was shut down after a mere 48 performances. Indeed, Bizet himself passed away from a sudden heart attack exactly three months after the premiere, convinced that he was an eternal failure. Luckily, the Vienna Opera had committed to produce the opera prior to Bizet’s passing and its production, launched in October 1875, proved to be a huge success. [The Viennese version replaced the spoken dialogue of the French version with sung recitative written in the style of Bizet. The sung version is actually still the most common version performed today. Tonight, you will hear the original French version with spoken dialogue although much of the dialogue has been cut.]  It is revered and worshiped by today’s audiences and there are books and books by composers and thinkers  singing its praises [Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Nietzsche each saw over 20 performances of the work. Tchaikovsky foretold that Carmen would become the most popular opera in the world].

It even spawned an entirely new genre of opera. Although such a story might not seem entirely realistic to today’s audiences, to Bizet’s contemporaries, it was entirely too close to home, too real, too current. It spanned an entirely new genre in opera, verismo, i.e. people in the present living normal lives (in contrast to being gods or royalty). In a sense, it was the reality television of the nineteenth century.

The story is essentially this: Don José, an inexperienced and “innocent” soldier from the country meets an exotic gypsy woman, Carmen, who has been disturbing the peace. In order to avoid capture, she seduces Don José and escapes. Through a series of events she is then responsible for his rejection of his naïve fiancé, Micaëla (billed by even the librettist as the antithesis to Carmen), his mutiny against his boss, and his leaving the army to join her band of smugglers. She then gets bored and moves onto the bullfighter Escamillo leading Don José to murder Carmen out of jealousy.

Is it really all her fault though? The feminist music historian Catherine Clement in her book Opera: The Undoing of Women laments Carmen’s tragic death and the death of most other opera heroines as victims of oppression by men. They are helplessly tossed about by the whims of their love objects. All except for Carmen, of course. According to Clement, Carmen must die because she refuses to acquiesce to Don José: “She says no. No again. No! She does not want him, does not love him anymore. He is bleating and he is dangerous, he repeats over and over: ‘There is still time … There is time to save yourself and to save me with you.’ Ah, here is the naked truth: what has to be saved is the man’s image, damaged by pure and simple jealousy, that can bring on all the deaths in the world.”

On the other hand, another scholar, Peter Conrad , attributes her death as a near suicide as a result of her superstitions. Having earlier forecast her death through a game of cards, she resigns herself to her fate, and eggs Don José to kill her. Indeed, some singers play the role so that Carmen walks into Don José’s knife because he is not even man enough to kill her.

Regardless of how in control she is of her fate, the question remains, is she “a sluttish femme fatale who destroyed a decent, upright soldier” or an “honest … and liberated woman murdered by a maternally dominated psychopath” (Rodney Milnes, music critic). The answer, in many ways, lies with Don José via looking closely at the opera’s source, Mérimée’s novella.

At the beginning of the story, Don José is already on the lamb, having killed a man during an argument resulting from a game of paume (hand tennis). He then runs away to Seville to join the army. From the outset, he is not quite so innocent, as he has already killed a man, is hot-tempered, and often acts irrationally. The opera does not mention this detail, although it is alluded to in Don José and Micaëla’s Act I duet: Don José’s mother writes in the letter delivered by Micaëla, “and tell him that his mother dreams of him day and night. She’s pardoned him, and prays he will always do what’s right.” His mother has pardoned him for Murder #1.

Murder #2 is again the result of his temper. After spending a month in jail because he allowed Carmen to escape, Don José kills his superior Zuniga after he orders Don José to stay away from Carmen. Of course in the opera, murder #2 is watered down by the opera’s librettists to Don José temporarily rendering Zuniga unconscious. Either way, Don José is compelled to join Carmen’s band of smugglers. In the novella, it is here that murder #3 occurs: Don José kills a gypsy, Garcia the One-eyed, in an argument over cards. After all this rage and death, it’s no wonder Carmen gets bored! As in the opera, Carmen then moves her affections to a toreador and is murdered by Don José in a jealous rage.

The book certainly gives more insight into the character of Don José and makes his murder of Carmen more of a result of a pattern of emotional overreaction than an out-of-the-blue act of passion by a simple country boy driven to insanity by a devilish gypsy. However it is Mérimée’s own preface that is the most damning statement of all of Carmen: “Woman as a whole is bitter. She possesses but two redeeming moments: one in bed and the other at death.”

Nevertheless, neither character, in both the novella and opera, are truly innocent creatures. Carmen’s murder is not the result of her infidelity, flirtation with, or abuse of Don José. She does not die simply for being a man-eater. It is also not the consequence of Don José’s propensity to kill people when they don’t do what he wants. Perhaps the tragic destiny of both main characters is the result of war, of the brutal battle between the sexes that Nietzsche deems the heart of the opera. He exclaimed the following upon seeing the opera for the twentieth time: “The love whose means is war, whose very essence is the mortal hatred between the sexes! I know no case in which the tragic irony, which constitutes the kernel of love, is expressed with such severity, or in so terrible a formula, as in the last cry of Don José with which the work ends: ‘Yes, it is I who have killed her,/ I — my adored Carmen!’”

What do you think of Carmen? Is she the owner of her fate, the first great opera heroine to take control of her destiny, to speak out against men, or is Don José passionate act simply a result of her constant torment and flirtation? Does she ‘deserve’ her destiny? Decide for yourself while enjoying one of the greatest operas of all time.

In general, I think most of us probably have too many things and stuff, and the prospect of getting another thing for the person who has everything? Just way too daunting for me.

That is why I am a huge fan of giving away Utah Symphony | Utah Opera tickets as a present. And I’m not just saying that because I work here! Tickets to the Symphony or Opera have been my awesome present to my parents for years. It’s not another thing that’s going to clutter up someone’s knick-knack shelves. When you give someone tickets, they go out, have a fabulous time, and have a great memory that they can remember always. You haven’t just given a thing, you’ve given an experience! And really, isn’t that what life’s all about?

If you’re like me, your holiday budget is a little bit smaller than in years past, but that doesn’t mean you can’t give someone an awesome gift. Utah Symphony | Utah Opera is having our First-Ever Holiday Sale, and now until December 23rd, you can get premium seats to most Masterworks concerts and Operas for only $20! These great seats will charm your in-laws, impress your boss, and leave all your friends in awe of your gift-giving skills. All you have to do is call the Utah Symphony | Utah Opera box office at 801-533-NOTE (6683), and ask for the holiday discount. The complete list of available concerts can be found here.

Still not sure what to get some of the people on your “nice” list? We’ve come up with a few suggestions:

For the Bargain Hunter: Suor Angelica & Gianni Schicchi.  This operatic double-header gives you two operas for the price of one! You’ll cry with Suor Angelica and this story of a mother’s love for her son, and then you’ll laugh with Gianni Schicchi as he connives to ensure his daughter’s happiness.

For the World Traveler: Send them on a musical journey to Egypt or Czechoslovakia. The Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No. 5 is nicknamed “The Egyptian”, because it was inspired by a trip to Luxor. Music Director Emeritus Keith Lockhart returns in February to conduct Smetana’s Má Vlast – a tribute to the composer’s Czech homeland.

For the Art Lover: Give them the experience of music’s most famous art gallery with Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.  This music tour explores images and fables from Russian history, written to commemorate the work of one of Mussorgsky’s dear friends, Viktor Hartmann.

For the Bookworm: Entertain your favorite bibliophile with one of the greatest stories ever told – Scheherazade. Rimsky-Korsakov’s symphonic adventure is inspired by some of the tales this legendary Persian Queen told in the book of One Thousand and One Nights.

Looking for other great concerts? Just visit the Holiday Sale at Utah Symphony | Utah Opera, now through December 23rd!