Name: Carmen Ridendo dicere severum ... [Laughing, saying bitter things]
Even those who are indifferent to the opera genre are undoubtedly familiar with the melodies and arias from Georges Bizet's opera Carmen, inspired by Prosper Mérime's novel of the same name. Who has not heard, in various performances and interpretations of the habanera Carmen, the verses of the bullfighter, or the mournful chime of the bells, merging with Don Jose's woeful moan of lost love, "Oh, my Carmen"? Friedrich Nietzsche, who adored Bizet’s opera, found for it the heartfelt words: “The good moves easily, all the divine walks with gentle feet.” Bizet's music comes easily and flexibly, graceful, languid, flirtatious, like a seductive lover. Piquant harmonies and completely new for the time sound combinations replace one another, but they are not the goal of the composer, whose music is warmed by true inspiration. She is exquisitely cheerful; but fate gravitates over her, her happiness is brief, sudden, merciless. This music translated the love triangle into the language of nature. Love, according to Bizet, is fatal, cynical, innocent and cruel – like nature itself. It is love, in its means war, and in its essence deadly hatred of the sexes.
In the 140 years since Carmen's stage debut, its popularity has surpassed that of the opera. Composer Rodion Shchedrin created an orchestral arrangement of the opera, which became the basis for the one-act ballet Carmen Suite, staged specifically for the incomparable Maya Plisetskaya. An adaptation of Bizet's opera was the Broadway musical Carmen Jones, in which all the characters are black Americans, and the action is moved to the South of the United States during World War II. The film adaptations of Carmen began with the era of silent cinema and continue to this day. In this regard, the 1980s stand apart, because within one year, several very different opera versions appeared on the screens. Among them are the laconic film production of “The Tragedy of Carmen” by Peter Brook and the rebellious “Name-Carmen” by Jean-Luc Godard. Extraordinarily interesting is Carlos Saura’s “Carmen”, the 2nd part of his dance flamenco film trilogy, in which, in addition to Bizet’s music, guitar compositions by Paco de Lucia sound. The main feature of the opera film, staged by the Italian Francesco Rosi, was its careful and accurate follow-up to the composer’s plan.
In the center of the painting, Rosie is a self-willed gypsy Carmen, freckled and barefoot, performed by American opera singer Julia Migenes-Johnson. Her defiant gait, unruly curly hair, alluring accessibility and mockery, attract the naive soldier Jose and deprive him of the opportunity to reason sanely. He is driven mad by the rustling of her skirts, as if the knives of ten devils were chopping the fine silk and his heart, in addition. For her, he deserts the army, associates with smugglers, abandons a virtuous and loving bride, loses self-respect and dignity. But none of that matters. To have Carmen, her body, her soul and her thoughts. But Carmen is incapable of eternal loyalty to a man. Any man. She follows the dictates of her heart, temperament, and the only god she worships: absolute freedom. Even in the face of an inevitable tragedy, knowing what fate has given her, Carmen will not be able to change herself. To myself.
Choosing a singer-actress for the role of Carmen is one of the main keys to the success of the film. She should embody not just a passionate charming woman, but, practically, the ancestor of the image of femme fatale, a symbol of eternal femininity. It radiates sensuality, evokes an unquenchable desire, and with carefree madness defies any opinion of it. And she must have a bewitching voice to be believable. Of the many on-screen and stage Carmen, Miguénez-Johnson is the most overtly sexy. Short and thin, Carmen in her performance does not have the royal grace of Maya Plisetskaya. Her voice is devoid of the tragic fateful depths that Maria Callas endowed with the willful gypsy. But her singing and playing leave no doubt that the benevolent intentions of the bewildered soldier will be swept away by the violent and dangerous flow of Carmen's erotic appeal, creating a charge of unprecedented attraction between them that will result in the tragically desperate love for her of Don Jose. It is like a flying bird. You can't keep her in a cage. Even if it is a cell of eternal love and devotion.
Francesco Rosi moved the film to 1875. It was this year that the premiere of the opera took place in Paris, shortly after which Bizet, 36, died untimely. The carina was filmed in Andalusia, in the small towns of Ronda and Carmona, and in Seville, where Prosper Mérime and Georges Bizet brought together a daring gypsy and a soldier who had forgotten his military duty for her. Rosie, in the literal sense of the word, released light, passionate, southern, sensitive and sensual music from a cage of strictly designated scenic conventions, and it sounds above pastoral landscapes, in colorful gypsy bivouacs and in the dazzling southern streets and plazas of a picturesque Spanish town. To this music, participants in mass scenes, including real Gypsies and Spaniards, take part in religious rituals, watch marching soldiers and indulge in their favorite spectacle, bullfighting. The prologue of the film, in which the music does not sound, is remembered by the skill of cameraman and director. It combines and seamlessly assembled documentary footage of a real bullfighter piercing a bleeding exhausted bull, and an actor playing a bullfighter in Carmen. The prologue brings a premonition of the inevitable future tragedy, the echoes of which are heard in the passionate, persistent chords of the overture, which sounded simultaneously with the deadly blow of the sword.
In his first address to the musical genre, Francesco Rosi took Bizet’s opera from the theater walls, placing it in beautiful authentic landscapes, making it voluminous and lively. As Bizet envisioned, the music and singing in Rosie’s film are interspersed with conversational dialogue rather than the recitatives that replaced them in Carmen productions after the composer’s death. Rosie, who devoted his directing talent to political, acutely social cinema, exposed the corruption of contemporary Italian society in all its manifestations. But the themes of his paintings were diverse and wide. His films of mature years, which include Carmen, are distinguished by poetic, interest in the inner psychology of a person, to the theme of love and betrayal. Under his direction, the main actors, opera singers Plácido Domingo, one of the world’s three most famous tenors, and Julia Miguénez-Johnson, penetrated deeply into the souls of their heroes, brilliantly playing a searing and deadly bullfight of love on the screen.