Over the weekend I attended a performance of George Bizet's Carmen at the the Capitol Theatre in Salt Lake City. It was well attended. When I bought my ticket 15 minutes before showtime, there were less than 10 seats available in the whole theater.
Unfortunately, that story was poorly transmitted. I find opera to be an awkward way of telling a story, at best. So while I was prepared to wade through a bit of over-euphonious dialog, I expected the full compositions to make it all worth it. But whoever prepared the super-titles believed that the audience was uninterested in the details of the story, and would be content to listen to the music as one would a symphony, with only occasional cues to hint at the development of the plot. This is not the first time I've seen this attitude. I've seen operas at Brigham Young University where the super-titles are similarly sparse and approximate. I believe it is an insult to the librettists, and I question why an opera house would go through so much work to prepare and present an opera only to have it rendered meaningless by inadequate supertext.
I could understand most of what Don Jose spoke or sang; perhaps the actor playing him actually knows French. In any case he took care to enunciate the gutteral consonants of the language. The other actors did not. I was able to catch phrases here and there out of the songs, and some of what Carmen said or sang, provided she was not singing very high or very fast. Every time I did, I was dissapointed to see just how careless the translation had been. It was as though the translator had taken it upon himself not only to bridge the language barrier for the audience, but also any cultural and epochal barriers. He must have had a low opinion of his audience, and the result might have been called Carmen for Junior-high School students, abridged, edited, and abridged again. Was he wrong? The older, well-dressed couple behind me seemed only to note how long the performance was. A group next to me commented only on the exquisite costuming. Perhaps they have their audience pegged. Even so, it takes quite a bit of hubris to remake a work of art which has been in continual demand for centuries, and believe oneself to be up to the task of identifying and preserving everything about that work which has made it so beloved to so many, while changing or losing everything deemed outdated or distracting.
Maybe next time I'll just go to Redbox. At least then I won't be expecting anything of literary value.
Carmen is based on a book, which from what I gather is much darker than the opera. It was written, it seems, by a pessimist, who had neither a very high opinion of women as a sex, nor of man's capacity to intelligently sift his environment (of which women are a part) for his own benefit, doomed instead to react and suffer according to whatever or whoever is thrust upon him.
Bizet and his librettists thought differently. In their story, Don Jose is a good man from a small town, who falls in love with a Gypsy woman, naively believing her love to be as simple and permanent as his own. Before he finds out otherwise, he is imprisoned, takes part in several crimes, and is forced to leave his home and all he knows and adopt the life and ways of the Gypsies.
Carmen is the more faceted and multi-dimensional character. She is ill adapted to the life of a factory worker in a big city, and her gypsy ideals of footloose 'freedom' continually inform her sometimes rash decisions.
Ultimately, there is something to be envied in both of them. Don Jose is constant, genuine, and faithful. Carmen is confident, resourceful, and seems always to land on her feet. But while they both have internalized some positive aspects of the culture they've known since they were children, neither seems able to continue learning in adulthood. Don Jose spends 6 months on the move with Carmen's gypsy clan, yet cannot accept change when he is confronted with it. He refuses to adapt, and perceives himself under duty to seek redress for any injustices he has suffered, as if the order he sought to uphold as a uniformed lieutenant were natural law.
Carmen is so preoccupied with her concept of freedom, that she never considers the possibility that a voluntary obligation can have benefits worth their cost. She violates law, trust, and morality because she can, and Don Jose eventually speaks to her in the only language she'll listen to -- that of force.
All in all, a moving story, and one which has much to offer anyone willing to look at his life and motivations objectively, and perhaps drop or substitute some habits or customs in favor of more consistent, or at least more pragmatic ones.
Unfortunately, that story was poorly transmitted. I find opera to be an awkward way of telling a story, at best. So while I was prepared to wade through a bit of over-euphonious dialog, I expected the full compositions to make it all worth it. But whoever prepared the super-titles believed that the audience was uninterested in the details of the story, and would be content to listen to the music as one would a symphony, with only occasional cues to hint at the development of the plot. This is not the first time I've seen this attitude. I've seen operas at Brigham Young University where the super-titles are similarly sparse and approximate. I believe it is an insult to the librettists, and I question why an opera house would go through so much work to prepare and present an opera only to have it rendered meaningless by inadequate supertext.
I could understand most of what Don Jose spoke or sang; perhaps the actor playing him actually knows French. In any case he took care to enunciate the gutteral consonants of the language. The other actors did not. I was able to catch phrases here and there out of the songs, and some of what Carmen said or sang, provided she was not singing very high or very fast. Every time I did, I was dissapointed to see just how careless the translation had been. It was as though the translator had taken it upon himself not only to bridge the language barrier for the audience, but also any cultural and epochal barriers. He must have had a low opinion of his audience, and the result might have been called Carmen for Junior-high School students, abridged, edited, and abridged again. Was he wrong? The older, well-dressed couple behind me seemed only to note how long the performance was. A group next to me commented only on the exquisite costuming. Perhaps they have their audience pegged. Even so, it takes quite a bit of hubris to remake a work of art which has been in continual demand for centuries, and believe oneself to be up to the task of identifying and preserving everything about that work which has made it so beloved to so many, while changing or losing everything deemed outdated or distracting.
Maybe next time I'll just go to Redbox. At least then I won't be expecting anything of literary value.
