Word: carmens
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...what music. Certainly not the most delicate of operas, Carmen roars on for two and a half hours in a mixture of traditional belle canto and lilting Spanish melodies. For those uninitiated into opera, Carmen is a perfect way to begin. Because it relies on a few key songs, most notably the famous "Habanera" and "Toreador's Song," the film is easy to follow. Perhaps the only drawback here is that, despite the Orchestre Nationale de France's energetic performance under conductor Lorin Maazel, Dolby remains a poor substitute for the crispness of the opera hall...
...Love's a gypsy child," sings Carmen (Julia Mignes-Johnson), "he finds that following the rules is hard/If you don't love me, I love you/And if I love you, then be on your guard." And with these lines from "Habaneras" the stage is set for the fateful love triangle involving gypsy Carmen, Don Jose (Placido Domingo) and the bullfighter Escamillio (Ruggero Raimondi...
...ACTION BEGINS in 19th century Seville, where Don Jose meets Carmen, a worker in a cigarette factory. Captivated by her earthy sensousness, Don Jose soon deserts the army to go off and live with Carmen in the mountains with a band of fellow gypsy smugglers...
...like the love she sings of earlier, Carmen is a "rebellious bird/That you can never hope to tame" and before long the lovers quarrel. Suddenly, Escamillio, the matador, appears. Escamillio also has fallen madly in love with the enchantress since meeting her before her flight from Seville. He challenges Don Jose to yield Carmen but Don Jose, determined to hold onto the last strands of his dignity, refuses. Only when faced with the news that his mother is dying back home does Don Jose leave the smugglers. But all the while he vows to come back and reclaim Carmen...
When he finally makes his way back to Seville a few months later, Don Jose finds Carmen, won over by the matador, at the bullring watching Escamillio in action. Beckoning to meet him outside, he begs her to be his love again. The closing aria is one of alternating pleading and denial in which Carmen, refusing to become a caged bird, falls victim to Don Jose's blind rage...