SYNOPSIS

CD 1 [1] Prélude

Act One

[2] Soldiers are standing around outside the guardhouse in a square in Seville, chatting and watching the people passing in the square. They are delighted when Micaëla, a shy young girl from Navarre, approaches them hesitantly, asking for Don José; Moralès, the corporal, tells her José will arrive with the relief guard, and invites her into the guardhouse to await José’s arrival.

[3] Bugles sound, announcing the arrival of the relief guard, and the local urchins form up to make their contribution, Moralès tells José that a young girl was asking for him, and then leaves with the departing guard. Zuniga, the lieutenant, asks José about the girls who work at the nearby tobacco factory, but José confesses he has never taken much notice of them.

[4] When the factory bell sounds, the square fills with young men waiting for the girls. As the girls enter, seductively smoking and singing of the delights of tobacco and the deceits of lovers, the men surround them eagerly. But it is Carmen whom the men really want to see and as she enters they crowd round her, imploring her to choose one of them for her lover. [5] In reply she sings of the elusive nature of love, as free as a bird and as wayward as a gipsy. She notices that José is the only man who seems indifferent to her, and tearing a flower from her bodice, she throws it at José’s feet and runs away laughing, while the cigarette girls mock his obvious discomfiture.

Left alone, José picks up the flower, angry at Carmen’s insolence but already aware of her fatal attraction. Micaëla enters and he thrusts the flower into his tunic before greeting her. She has brought him a letter from his mother and a purse of money; the most precious gift she has brought, however, is a kiss, and in a tender duet he recalls his mother and his home, which his mother’s kiss has brought back to his mind, while Micaëla lovingly echoes his nostalgia. Micaëla leaves, saying she will come back later.

Screams are heard from the factory. The girls rush out calling for help from the soldiers and fighting with one another. For a time chaos reigns, as the groups of girls attempt to tell Zuniga their version of a quarrel that has taken place between Carmen and Manuelita. Zuniga orders José to take two men into the factory with him to investigate, while he and the soldiers attempt to restore order. José brings out Carmen under arrest, and tells Zuniga that she slashed the other girl’s face with a knife. Carmen will only sing insolently instead of answering Zuniga’s questions, until he, exasperated by her obstinacy, orders that she should be taken to prison. Her hands are bound, and Zuniga goes off with the other soldiers to make out the warrant committing Carmen to prison, leaving her in José’s charge.

[10] When José forbids her to speak, Carmen sings seductively of an evening at Lillas Pastia’s tavern with her next lover. She implies that José might well be this lover, and she so bewitches him that he unties her hands and agrees to let her escape. When the lieutenant comes back with the warrant she lets herself be led away by José. Suddenly she turns, pushes him to the ground and escapes while her friends laughingly prevent Zuniga and the soldiers from pursuing her.

[12] Entr’acte

Act Two

In Lillas Pastia’s tavern. Carmen and her gipsy friends Frasquita and Mercédès are dancing and singing to entertain Zuniga and the other officers. Zuniga thinks Carmen is angry with him, because he ordered her to be sent to prison, although José allowed her to escape and was himself sent to prison. He tells Carmen that José has just been released, and Carmen rejoices at the news.

[14] Shouts of acclamation are heard outside and a torchlight procession is seen approaching. Frasquita recognises Escamillo, the great bullfighter from Granada, and Zuniga invites him into the tavern for a drink. [15] Escamillo replies to the toast with a rousing song in praise of the glories of bullfighting. The torero is attracted to Carmen and asks her name, but though she does not encourage him she tells him he must wait and hope. Zuniga, however, is more persistent, and insists that he will return later to see Carmen, though she tells him not to. He and the soldiers join Escamillo’s procession, and they all leave together.

The smugglers Dancairo and Remendado arrive. They tell the gipsy girls of their plans to dispose of their latest batch of contraband which they are smuggling out via Gibraltar. In order to carry out their plan however, they need the girls’ co operation, since, as they all agree, in cases of deception thieving women are indispensable. The arrangements seem to be finalised, until Carmen states flatly that she will not be going with them.

They are all amazed, and the more so when she tells them the reason — that she is in love. They can hardly believe their ears; the story is a familiar one, but on many previous occasions she has managed to combine love with duty. This time, however, she is adamant; she will not come.

She explains that she is expecting a young soldier who has been to prison for letting her escape and who has just been released; her friends are rather scornful that he has not escaped before, since they know she sent him a file while he was in prison. They do not believe he will come at all, but then his voice is heard and Dancairo exhorts Carmen to persuade José to join them as a smuggler. She thinks it unlikely that he will agree, but promises to try, and sends her friends away so that she can receive José.
[18] José enters and embraces Carmen, who reproaches him for not escaping. He protests that his honour as a soldier fobade it.

CD 2 [1] José is jealous when she tells him she has just been dancing for Zuniga and the other officers, but she placates him by dancing for him alone, accompanying herself on the castanets. José hears distant bugles calling the soldiers back to the barracks for the nightly roll call. He stops Carmen dancing to explain that he must leave, and she in a furious rage throws him his shako and sword, refusing to listen to his excuses. [2] He forces her to listen by producing the flower she threw him, which he has kept all the time he has been in prison and which he now shows her as a proof of his love.

Carmen coolly rejects his protestations of love, declaring that if he really loved her he would join her in the wandering life of the gipsy. He is almost convinced by her alluring picture of a life of freedom, but then violently tears himself away from her, swearing he will never become a deserter. He bids her an impassioned farewell, and is about to leave when Zuniga bursts in and confronts José, who refuses to leave when ordered and draws his sword on his superior officer. Carmen calls for help, and when Dancairo and Remendado rush in with the other gipsies the two antagonists are quickly disarmed.

Carmen mockingly tells Zuniga that he has arrived at a most inopportune moment, and will have to be detained until the smugglers are safely away. She then turns to José and asks if he now feels ready to join the smugglers. He grudgingly admits that he has no other choice, and Carmen and the other gipsies paint a glowing picture of the glorious liberty which is their way of life.

[5] Entr’acte

Act Three

[6] The smugglers are bringing a haul of contraband over the mountains. They are constantly watchful for fear of being discovered, but rejoice that their way of life is always full of excitement and calls for great courage. They settle down to rest for an hour while Dancairo and Remendado go on ahead to find out the best way of proceeding into the town below. José tells Carmen that his mother lives in the village nearby; Carmen is already growing tired of him, but when she tells him that he ought to return to his mother, he violently rejects the suggestion.

[7] Frasquita and Mercédès lay out cards to foretell the future: Mercédès foresees a handsome young lover, Frasquita a rich old husband who dies leaving her a fortune. But when Carmen lays out the cards, they predict only death, both for her and José. What the cards foretell is inevitable. and she broods on her fate while Frasquita and Mercédès rejoice at their good fortune.

Dancairo and Remendado return with the news that there are three customs men on guard but the three gipsy girls promise to take care of the three customs men and the smugglers go away, leaving José nearby to guard the merchandise.

[9] Micaëla has come to look for José. She expresses dreadful misgivings as she looks round at the dark, forbidding mountain pass, and calls on God to give her strength. She catches sight of Don José, and calls him, but he does not see her and fires a shot. She hides in fear as Escamillo appears; Don José’s shot has just missed him. He introduces himself and tells José he has come to find Carmen, with whom he is in love. José’s violently jealous reaction betrays his own relationship with Carmen, he challenges Escamillo to a knife-fight. Escamillo stumbles and fails. José is about to kill him, but Carmen and the other smugglers come rushing in and disarm José.

Escamillo is charmed that it is Carmen who has saved his life, and promises he will have his revenge on José. He invites all the gipsies to the next bullfight in Seville and goes, leaving José seething with jealousy. The smugglers are about to move off when Remendado discovers Micaëla hiding the rocks. José is amazed to see her, but she tells him that his mother has sent her to plead with him to come home.

Carmen tells him to leave, but José swears he will not let her go off with her new lover Escamillo.

Micaëla however, in a last desperate effort to persuade him, tells him his mother is dying and longs to see him before she dies. José agrees to leave with Micaëla, but warns Carmen that they will meet again; as they are about to go, Escamillo's voice is heard singing his characteristic song as he goes away down the mountain.

[12] Entr’acte

Act Four

[13] On the day of Escamillo’s great bullfight in Seville, the square outside the bull-ring is a scene of great bustle and activity. as merchants and gipsies sell oranges, fans and programmes. The procession to the bull-ring commences, and the boys, merchants and gipsies gaily acclaim the colourful array of brilliantly-dressed men who make up the pageantry of the bull-fight.

[14] At the climax of the procession Escamillo appears with Carmen, radiantly dressed, on his arm, and they tenderly express their love for each other. Frasquita and Mercédès approach Carmen to warn her that they have seen José in the crowd and she should be careful. She is scornful of their warnings and tells them not to worry about her. Frasquita and Mercédès follow the crowd into the bull-ring, and Carmen waits for the inevitable confrontation with José.

[15] He tells her he has not come to threaten her but to beg for her love. She declares that all is over between them, but he cannot believe it, and implores her passionately to return to him. The crowd is heard acclaiming Escamillo’s courage in the bull-fight and Carmen turns towards the entrance to the arena. José bars her way, challenging her to confess that Escamillo is her new lover. She admits it proudly, and tells José that she will admit it even in the face of death. As the jubilant shouts of the crowd are heard again, José at last realises that she loves him no more, and when she flings in his face the ring he once gave her, his rage and despair overwhelm him and he stabs her. To the joyful shouts acclaiming Escamillo’s victory in the bull-ring, José gives himself up.

Gerd Uekermann
Translation DECCA 1990