6 - The reception of Carmen

Summary

Reactions to the premiere

Ludovic Halévy realized on opening night that Carmen had failed (see his account in Chapter 2). A few days later, he assigned the blame to unfamiliarity: “It took a little time for [staff and performers] to get to like and admire this score. At the outset we were more astonished than enchanted by it. Such was the evident impression on the audience the first evening. The effect of the performance was uncertain, indecisive. Not bad, but not good either.”

If Halévy found it difficult to read the audience's cool response during the performance itself, he did not have to wait long to learn the grounds for its displeasure. While unfamiliarity no doubt played a role, it was by no means the principal problem cited by the reviews that began appearing immediately. Bizet's opera sparked antagonisms along two fronts: moral propriety and musical style. Given his boasts that he intended to “change the genre of opéra-comique” and the protests of the Opéra-Comique management over the project, the hostility with which Carmen was greeted in the press ought not to have been a surprise. Yet the response devastated Bizet, who is reported to have exclaimed during opening night: “Don't you see that all these bourgeois have not understood a wretched word of the work I have written for them?”

The most ferocious of the attacks objected to the explicit portrayal of female sexuality in the opera, and the most abusive of these came from Jean-Pierre-Oscar Comettant and Achille de Lauzières, Marquis de Thémines.