{ "version": "1.0.0", "segments": [ { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "0.0", "endTime": "4.0", "body": "For me, it's about being mean to men on stage and humiliating them." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "17.625", "endTime": "45.315", "body": "Welcome to Decanonized, an opera podcast where the sacred is subjective. I'm your host, Olivia Giovetti. And every other week, I will be joined by a guest to dive into one of the top 100 operas as collected by Henry W. Simon in his book, 100 Great Operas and Their Stories. And we're beginning this show with what many consider to be the greatest opera, Georges Bizet's Carmen." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 3", "startTime": "48.914997", "endTime": "54.515", "body": "Who's the lard-butt? He's the bullfighter. No way a bull's gonna miss a target that big man." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "55.010002", "endTime": "114.365005", "body": "It's the opera that asks, what if every man spirals into violence just because one one woman has boundaries and self awareness? And Carmen is not so much a femme fatale as she is just a woman who texts back when she feels like it. That's why I love her. I'm here with Nikola Printz. They are a mezzo soprano, alumni of the Marilla opera program, and the Adler fellowship with the San Francisco opera." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "114.54", "endTime": "125.74", "body": "They were also awarded earlier this year the 2025 Richard Tucker career grant and have sung Carmen more than any other role? Yes. Welcome. Hi. Hi." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "126.14", "endTime": "129.26", "body": "How do you explain Carmen to someone who has never seen it?" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "131.315", "endTime": "161.53", "body": "I mean, to someone who's never seen it, I usually start with the reference of you know what these songs sound like. Because that's the easiest for anyone who doesn't know anything about opera. It's the easiest point of reference. You think of any chocolate commercial or any like sexy lady sound, you immediately think of most people relate, I think, to the Toriador. So I start with a point of this is music you know." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "162.065", "endTime": "178.22", "body": "And then once you kind of get people on that track, you also can continue with, this is a story that you're probably familiar with. It's about class. It's about race. It's about hating cops. It's about crime." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "178.29999", "endTime": "186.14", "body": "It's about fem side. It's such like, so many themes are so familiar in many different stories that have been, like, echoed throughout history." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "186.21999", "endTime": "195.77501", "body": "I remember someone on Twitter once saying that Carmen is definitive proof that it's better to be with a charming fuck boy than with a cop." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "195.935", "endTime": "199.535", "body": "Yes. Truly. Don Jose, he's definitely a fuck boy." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "199.535", "endTime": "200.895", "body": "Is Don Jose a fuck boy?" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "200.895", "endTime": "225.375", "body": "This is He is. Yes. Well, okay. If you think of what are the tenants of being a fuck boy? Indecisiveness, being obsessed with your fucking mom, fucking over your past girlfriend before, the quickness with which he ditched Mikaela, the girl who was willing to give him everything, this poor girl of virtue, I feel like Don Jose is a fuck boy, but like the dangerous kind" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "225.375", "endTime": "229.455", "body": "that This is true. I hadn't considered it from Mikaela's vantage point. But" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "229.69499", "endTime": "230.255", "body": "Oh, yeah." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "230.33499", "endTime": "231.775", "body": "That a 100% makes sense." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "232.53", "endTime": "246.53", "body": "And people stupid people would argue that Carmen is a fuck boy, and I don't think so. The way in which she ditches dudes is in her way admirable. It shows power when women didn't have power. Exactly. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "246.895", "endTime": "249.135", "body": "Yeah. I am all for women's rights. I am also" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "249.375", "endTime": "250.575", "body": "I'm for women's wrongs." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "250.575", "endTime": "284.355", "body": "So the year is 1875. The United States Congress passes the Civil Rights Act, which the Supreme Court would overturn eight years later. Famed American outlaw Billy the Kid is arrested for the first time, and Egypt attempts and fails to invade Ethiopia. Palais Garnier is inaugurated as the home of the Paris opera, and major musical premieres include Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto, Smetinozmav Lost, Griggs incidental music for Pier Gintz, and Mazorski's songs and dances of death, and, of course, Carmen. Carmen." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "284.595", "endTime": "287.95502", "body": "Which does not open the Paris Opera. It is at the Opera Comique." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "287.95502", "endTime": "289.39502", "body": "Yeah. I wasn't good enough for the" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "291.07", "endTime": "293.15", "body": "Do you remember the first" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "293.15", "endTime": "310.06503", "body": "time that you heard Carmen? It was Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte because it was Carmen Jones, which is the first way I experienced Carmen. The second way, Beyonce. I've heard so much about you. Hopefully, nothing too bad." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 4", "startTime": "310.30502", "endTime": "325.48", "body": "Nikola Pfeiffer, Beyonce Knowles, Mos Def, Ra Digga, Da Brat, Lil Bow Wow, Wyclef Jean, Jermaine Dupuis, Carmen. One more time." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "325.88", "endTime": "328.12", "body": "Carmen the hip opera. Carmen the hip opera." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "328.12", "endTime": "351.24002", "body": "But Carmen Jones really stuck with me, mostly because Harry Belafonte is so fucking sexy. Like, I would almost believe in him. But, yeah, I just remember this, like, hot red, like, pencil skirt and this black top and just, like, cutting in line at the lunchroom and just snappy responses. And, of course, we all know that it's Marilyn Horne's voice singing it, which fair enough. Fine." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "351.24002", "endTime": "357.56", "body": "Fine. Fine. Marilyn Horn. But I fell in love with it. And I think I was 16 at the time." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "357.88", "endTime": "378.04", "body": "And I decided then that I wanted to write my like, I'm like, oh, you can just take an opera that was already written and write your own libretto. I'm gonna do that. And so I wrote my own horrible high school music version of Carmen that is thankfully gone because that computer that it was on is destroyed by now." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "378.04", "endTime": "379.72", "body": "Did the same thing when I was 16." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 3", "startTime": "379.72", "endTime": "382.44", "body": "Yeah. It was called Girl in a Red Dress," }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "382.52", "endTime": "388.44", "body": "and it was set among Italian Americans in The United States during World War two with Italian internment." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "388.52", "endTime": "405.27", "body": "Oh my gosh. Incredible. Mine was much less mine was like, I'm gonna play Carmen fucking obviously. And Carmen was like this cool punk rock chick who like flipped off the principal and like rode a skateboard. It was it's supremely stupid." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "405.27", "endTime": "407.11", "body": "You did the original dirtbag" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "407.43", "endTime": "416.87", "body": "opera. Dirtbag Carmen. Amazing. And I aspire to do a production where I get to be dirtbag Carmen again. Like, dirtbag tank girl kind kinda Carmen." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "416.87", "endTime": "418.15", "body": "Tank girl Carmen. Yes." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "418.15", "endTime": "418.38998", "body": "Yes." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "418.885", "endTime": "420.085", "body": "Kind of in a Mad Max" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "420.325", "endTime": "422.96503", "body": "Yes. Sort of Absolutely. Dystopia. Absolutely." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "423.445", "endTime": "440.52002", "body": "So the text that I'm using to guide this entire podcast is Henry Simon's 100 great operas and their stories. And of Carmen, he writes that Carmen is, I believe, the most widely popular of all operas. He has slightly more problematic things that he says about it afterwards." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "441.0", "endTime": "441.64", "body": "I'm sure." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "441.64", "endTime": "471.94", "body": "Not so much against Carmen, but you can tell that this was a book that was originally written in the first half of twentieth century when he says, it is now part of the repertory of every opera company in every language, even the Japanese. Oh, no. And its popularity is not confined to the opera stage. It has been made into restaurant music, virtuoso piano transcripts, and several movies. And the latest and most successful of the movie version, Carmen Jones, is based on a Negro operetta version that was a huge Broadway hit." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "471.94", "endTime": "495.49", "body": "Now granted, that was the more PC term back then. But I think that also does speak to both the incredible long standing popularity of the opera and also how much othering is even ingrained in how we" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "495.49", "endTime": "506.005", "body": "talk about it. Absolutely. The whole opera is is centered around othering. Other gender, lower class, other race. Apropos, he talks about it in that way." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "506.005", "endTime": "516.485", "body": "I mean, that's how so many opera companies refer to it even with our politically correct terms that we say Roma, Romani now instead of the g word." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "516.98004", "endTime": "530.67505", "body": "Vagabonds, travelers. Vagabonds. Think those are some of the we we saw the Deutsche Opera production of Carmen a few days ago, and I think they were using Smugglers? Smugglers was in there. Vagabonds, I think, was in there." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "530.755", "endTime": "539.23505", "body": "Maybe they used travelers. I know that when they also did Traviata a few weeks ago, when they have that scene, they also say, I think, vagabonds. Which is so" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "539.23505", "endTime": "558.81", "body": "funny because you could just say Roma. But even that is, like, kind of there are so many different races of travelers that, you know, it's it's it's wild to just reduce it to one term. But that is Roma is the most like all encompassing and most PC that I have encountered. That's what SF Opera used in ours." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "559.90497", "endTime": "563.905", "body": "Well, know, Stevie Nicks uses it, then surely it can't be all that bad." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "564.305", "endTime": "603.42004", "body": "I know. I mean, how many like dumb bitches go to Burning Man and call themselves some form of that word with like dreaming. And I, you know, I have been told by my parents that we have that heritage in our family. I will not do 23 and me because I do not wanna give the government my DNA. But I, you know, I have a lot of feelings about like this othering like the the Spanish, particularly the the Basque versus these darker, more southern Spain, Sephardic." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "603.42004", "endTime": "608.86005", "body": "I mean, Carmen is Sephardic and Jewish too. Right? Possibly." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "608.94", "endTime": "648.885", "body": "So Al Andalus, Andalusia was basically up until Ferdinand and Isabella came and fucked everything up. A really cohesive and copacetic city for Arabs, for Spaniards, for Muslims, for Christians, for Jews. It functioned really well in a way that historians still talk about it. My best guess is that she probably comes out of that lineage somewhere because that's when you had these wars that were happening further towards the Fertile Crescent. You had certain mass migrations through the North Of Africa up the Iberian Peninsula." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "648.885", "endTime": "649.365", "body": "Mhmm." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "649.845", "endTime": "652.885", "body": "Which I think is where all of this comes through." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "653.045", "endTime": "687.785", "body": "Yeah. But even like okay. When I first read the Prosper Mérimée, what struck me so much the first time reading it before I really knew that much about this before the first time I sang it. The way they described what she looked like, comparing parts of her aspects of her beauty to wild animals tells me everything I need to know about how she was viewed, her status, and how she was viewed in society. Like, they said she had wild hair, like wild course black hair, like a wolf or something like that." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "687.785", "endTime": "696.56", "body": "I have to, like, look up the exact phrase. And then, like, dark skin, dark eyes, like, beakish nose, like, clearly a person of color." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "696.72003", "endTime": "729.22", "body": "I'm glad you brought up the Mérimée too because it was originally published before it was a novella. He published it in a travel journal called The Review of Two Worlds, which was specifically written for French readers, like for the civilized world, because we're talking about two worlds. So they're the civilized world, and they wanted to understand the exotic other worlds. Yes. And then you have these layers of narrative within that because the narrator of the Merry May is like this Anthony Bourdain type of guy." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "729.22", "endTime": "731.765", "body": "Yeah. Who's traveling with Don Jose." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "731.765", "endTime": "744.48505", "body": "Yeah. He runs into Jose, and Jose then tells the story to him. Mhmm. I think he also does he run into Carmen in the Mérimée? I feel like he either encounters Carmen himself or maybe Carmen's husband." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "745.26996", "endTime": "753.43", "body": "I think she has a husband. No. I think they encounter her husband. Well, yeah. Because she was, like, sold as a child bride at, like, 12, 13 years old." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "753.99", "endTime": "769.855", "body": "And this is also at a key point in French history as well. You know, you have Napoleon going into Egypt and basically saying, all this is mine. Mhmm. As I mentioned before, Egypt attempts to invade Ethiopia. We are just a few years out from the premier of Aida in 1871." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "769.855", "endTime": "785.86", "body": "So really, this is like a time when people are just like, in the same way that fifteen years ago, everything had to be vampires. This was kind of these were the vibes in France in 1875." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "785.86", "endTime": "815.13", "body": "When did they invade Algiers? Because there's this amazing portrait of this Algerian woman with, like, traditional garb and a some kind of a gun killing French soldiers. I just think that's when I think of Carmen archetypal, regardless of the Prosper Merame, I think of a woman who kills men for sport, for money, for gain. Like, I believe that Carmen at the start of this opera has killed people, like, easily." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "815.465", "endTime": "816.825", "body": "Oh, yeah. For sure." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "817.22504", "endTime": "825.865", "body": "And not just to steal their kidneys. As our our Repo the Genetic Opera Carmen production that we just saw." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "825.865", "endTime": "835.46", "body": "Repo the Genetic Opera, Comique. Well, I appreciate that so many people now see Carmen as just the woman who can lift up her skirt with her teeth" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "835.62", "endTime": "835.78", "body": "Yes." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "835.94", "endTime": "846.625", "body": "And not see it as this much more interesting and complex woman whose sexiness is kind of almost just a footnote to everything else or a byproduct of everything a tool." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "846.625", "endTime": "850.305", "body": "It's I mean, it's a byproduct. It's a tool. It's one of her weapons" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "850.305", "endTime": "851.745", "body": "as much survival mechanism." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "851.745", "endTime": "877.295", "body": "It's a survival mechanism. I mean, there's so many I'm I mean, I'm sure this has already been done with the trope of Carmen as a sex worker, like, a survival sex worker. I'm I'm almost positive someone has done Carmen as a stripper. Like, again, I would believe that this idea. And I think this gets this is what many portrayals get so wrong is that the sexiness is like the thing." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "877.77496", "endTime": "893.91003", "body": "And it's not. It's the danger. Like, she is dangerous. And the beauty is part of her danger. And I think so many productions of Carmen for me miss are missing their teeth because they're missing that." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "894.39", "endTime": "899.67", "body": "So how did you find your way into Carmen? Who was Carmen for you? Maria Ewing." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "901.29504", "endTime": "939.675", "body": "Yeah. Klasik. Of one of the best singing actors. I mean She was who informed me that one, you didn't have to have a perfect voice to be a famous singer, but you did have to be very present full. And you did have to be not only present full in your face, but also in your body." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "939.675", "endTime": "959.855", "body": "Like, I've never seen an opera singer so embodied. I just loved how, like, cat like she is on stage. For me, Carmen is like this dangerous jungle cat that is, like, kind of sleeping most of the time. And then, like, when you have her attention locked in on you, ready to pounce. Every time she was on stage, my eyes went straight to her." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "960.495", "endTime": "969.77496", "body": "And I'm like, that's the kind of Carmen I wanna be. I wanna be like even if Carmen's just wandering in the background, you still wanna be looking for her. You still wanna be wondering where she is at all times." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "970.37", "endTime": "972.29", "body": "And if she's not on stage, you feel it." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "972.29", "endTime": "982.93", "body": "Like, yeah. Where is she? Like, every time there's Mikayla and Dan Jose duet, I'm thinking, like, I wanna see Carmen again. Don't care about these two. If the Carmen does it right, that's how you feel." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "982.93", "endTime": "992.245", "body": "Yeah. Yeah. This took me a while to realize, and I think Maria Ewing was the person who helped me understand this, that Carmen is a lot like Sally Bowles in Cabaret." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "992.245", "endTime": "993.365", "body": "Oh, yeah." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "993.605", "endTime": "999.08997", "body": "Where you don't need like, when Sally Bowles sings Cabaret at the end of the show" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "999.41", "endTime": "1004.20996", "body": "What good is sitting I love this new the the way it's being performed." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1004.37", "endTime": "1021.39496", "body": "Where it's just being screamed. Looking screamed. Because it is even in, like, the libretto for that piece, that final verse, it says she really starts to break down. Yeah. And I think it's the same way with Carmen is that it doesn't need to sound perfect." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1021.39496", "endTime": "1026.45", "body": "And then this is the other thing is this is one of those rare roles that can be sung by a variety of voices." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1026.4501", "endTime": "1033.5701", "body": "Oh, yeah. I I sign off. Maria Callas is one of my fave other favorite Carmen's. And never did see her do it." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1033.5701", "endTime": "1043.385", "body": "Pretty. It's not pretty, but it's good. It's real. You can tell how much of herself because she was also a Sagittarius. A Sagittarius." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1043.785", "endTime": "1049.9451", "body": "Yeah. Collis, Maria Ewing. My first experience with Carmen was Peter Brooks' tragedy of Carmen." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1049.9451", "endTime": "1052.505", "body": "Yeah. That's a fun one, and it gets a bad rap." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1052.85", "endTime": "1067.9049", "body": "My mother recorded it off of PBS thinking it was just going to be one of those live from the Met type broadcasts of Carmen. Mhmm. And we watched it, and I was like, why is she carving something into Mikaela's forehead?" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1068.465", "endTime": "1074.225", "body": "I know. It kinda boils the opera down in a really interesting way when you take away all, like, the fluff of" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1074.305", "endTime": "1076.065", "body": "It's really just those four characters." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1076.065", "endTime": "1087.28", "body": "Yeah. Takes away the I think it takes away the comedy of it because I think I do think Carmen can be partially a comedy. There's definitely funny moments to be had. But, yeah, the the Peter Brooks is really dark. But I love that the bull" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1087.28", "endTime": "1098.705", "body": "wins at the end. Yeah. You know, so many performances that I saw, especially when I was younger, kind of before staging started to take the work more seriously." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1098.7051", "endTime": "1099.185", "body": "Mhmm." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1099.185", "endTime": "1103.505", "body": "It is just a lot of dancing on tabletops. And" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1103.745", "endTime": "1104.145", "body": "Oh, yeah." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1104.145", "endTime": "1118.71", "body": "So to see Peter Brooks' version, even though I do like the comedy, I liked how seriously he took it Yeah. Against the backdrop of so many bad nineties Carmans. I liked the Anna Sophie von Otter DVD from Glyneborn too." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1118.71", "endTime": "1120.79", "body": "I've never watched it. I've only heard her sing it." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1121.525", "endTime": "1130.4049", "body": "I really liked how unsexy she was at points. Like, she's sniffing her armpits when they're coming out from the factory break. Yes. And, like, that's what you would be doing." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1130.485", "endTime": "1137.12", "body": "Is that unsexy? That's subjective. Because, like, some people would pay good money to sniff those pits. Listen." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1138.88", "endTime": "1143.76", "body": "I really wanna see Carmen's OnlyFans now. She would make so much money on OnlyFans." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1143.92", "endTime": "1145.2001", "body": "What what would be her thing?" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1146.735", "endTime": "1149.135", "body": "Humiliation. Oh, I was gonna say feet." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1149.695", "endTime": "1150.735", "body": "Because she's barefoot." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 3", "startTime": "1150.735", "endTime": "1153.615", "body": "Come on. Yeah. But feet is so easy. I mean, everybody's" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1153.775", "endTime": "1161.67", "body": "because everyone jokes now, like, oh, I'll just sell my feet pictures on OnlyFans because they can't see my face. And it's like, no. You gotta put a whole personality No." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1161.67", "endTime": "1163.5901", "body": "You gotta have into it. It's not just feet." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1163.5901", "endTime": "1164.79", "body": "No. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1164.79", "endTime": "1167.75", "body": "It's not just feet. Cam girl Carmen could be really compelling." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1168.23", "endTime": "1192.64", "body": "And this is the other thing, I think, with how Carmen is presented here versus in the Merry May where in the Merry May, it's told through all of these filters. It's the unnamed narrator who's recounting what Jose tells him. So it's like all this, like, really pornographic Through a men's lens. Yeah. And then finally, and I think Susan McClary touches on this as well." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1192.64", "endTime": "1210.375", "body": "I may be getting this from her. But in the Bise, you don't have any of that, which means that Carmen is speaking for herself. And you kind of realize, oh god, this Don Jose is really, really boring and stupid. This is one thing in Henry Simon's favor. He says that Don Jose is a bit of a prig." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1210.375", "endTime": "1217.255", "body": "Yeah. I mean, we know that he's there because he's in trouble. He's a like, he we we know at the beginning of the op But" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1217.255", "endTime": "1227.9299", "body": "it's so, like, it's so oblique. Like, I don't think I realized that he's there as a punishment or because he killed someone until maybe college. When, like, I read the program note." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1227.9299", "endTime": "1243.885", "body": "Until you read the program notes, that's when you know. Or if you've, like, I mean, if you read the Prosper Merit, may you know. But, yeah, the program notes, I mean, there's it's so hard to show that on stage. The Carmen Jones shows it. Like, we're aware of it in the beginning because he has a bad attitude in the beginning." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1243.885", "endTime": "1245.965", "body": "He's like, I don't wanna fucking be here. I'm like, of course, you" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1245.965", "endTime": "1251.6901", "body": "don't wanna be here. This is jail kind of light, jail light. It's military school." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1251.6901", "endTime": "1269.7849", "body": "It's military school. Yeah. So I feel like the girls who get it, get it. They get from the beginning that he's bad news, which is why when productions don't have him on stage at the beginning, like with all of the stuff going on, you don't get that. You don't see him within the ecosystem of his situation." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1270.6649", "endTime": "1275.465", "body": "And a lot of times, a lot of dudes do a disservice to the opera because they show him as this like" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 3", "startTime": "1275.465", "endTime": "1283.47", "body": "happy go lucky, like, I'm just going to the military and then I'm gonna go home to my mommy and then I might marry my girlfriend. Like, they" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1283.63", "endTime": "1296.965", "body": "Very Jimmy Stewart. Very. And that makes one, it makes the Carmen look like a fucking asshole when she inevitably ruins him. I've definitely like been told after productions like, oh, yeah, Carmen's the bad guy. You're the bad guy." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1296.965", "endTime": "1301.0449", "body": "I'm like, am I though? Am I the bad guy? I get killed." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1301.64", "endTime": "1326.785", "body": "Escamilla falls into this as well. But at least of that main central love triangle between her and Mikaela and Jose, she's the only one that doesn't really change throughout the piece. She is just completely unapologetically herself. I think that to people makes them think, oh, she's clearly the bad guy because the bad guys are the ones who always stay fairly static. But it's just that she's already like a full three-dimensional person." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1326.785", "endTime": "1329.425", "body": "Yeah. Which you get in all of her Arias. I mean, you stack those" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1329.665", "endTime": "1339.22", "body": "She, there's no lie. She has never told a lie. She she walks on stage. The first thing she does is be like, hey, boys. This is my deal." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1339.78", "endTime": "1359.0249", "body": "If you like it, great. If you don't like it, also great. Doesn't affect me at all. Like, from the get go, we have this idea that she doesn't give a fuck what anyone thinks about her. And she's gonna live her life the way she wants regardless, regardless of the rules, regardless of what is expected of her." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1359.345", "endTime": "1378.715", "body": "And then when people challenge it, she, of course, stands up and, of course, battles. And this idea that she is like this wanton crazy woman, I don't accept. She is the smartest person on that stage. And she's the person who knows herself the best. Probably next in line is Mikaela." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1378.715", "endTime": "1387.755", "body": "Yeah. You have these two pillars of two very strong women who know themselves and who know their abilities and who have like so much bravery. Like, Mikaela is so brave." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1387.98", "endTime": "1403.405", "body": "She goes out into the mountains, into the smugglers camp. And I think the bravest thing she does is to say, I shouldn't be afraid. I said it's not going to bother me, but I am a little afraid. But I'm still here. Exactly." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1403.405", "endTime": "1403.645", "body": "Yeah." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1433.115", "endTime": "1436.875", "body": "You know, and Jose, like, can't wipe his ass on his own." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1436.875", "endTime": "1456.47", "body": "No. No. It's I mean, that's why the question of whether this opera is a good opera or not good opera. This opera is one of the best operas ever written. Because it lays all the cards out on the table that you need to understand about society, about the dynamics between men and women, about race and class." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1456.47", "endTime": "1473.745", "body": "And where it goes wrong is when people take really stupid liberties with it and make it into something it's not. And I think where it can go right is where you take these elements. Like, this production that we saw, yeah, it's it's tacky, but I got the gist." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1474.73", "endTime": "1496.335", "body": "I think Carmen has never I think Carmen is a little bit tacky, though. I think that's the other thing too. Like, Ludovic Halevi said that it took a little time for the performers and the staff of the Opera Kamik to get to like and admire the score. At the outset, we were more astonished than enchanted by it. Such was the evident impression on the audience the first evening." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1496.655", "endTime": "1510.72", "body": "The effect of the performance was uncertain, indecisive, not bad, but not good either. Mhmm. Because at the Opera Kamik, you had these audiences who were, like, these really nice bourgeois families Mhmm. You know, where, like, marriage proposals were being brokered at intermission. Mhmm." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1511.3601", "endTime": "1513.12", "body": "No shit. They didn't like it." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1514.805", "endTime": "1517.125", "body": "Like, oh my gosh. She's gonna play castanuts and give a" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1517.125", "endTime": "1526.5651", "body": "lap dance on stage. Oh. I mean, like, up until then, like, one of their big operas had been La Dame Blanche, which literally translates to the white lady, that level of purity" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1526.805", "endTime": "1526.9651", "body": "Yeah." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1527.27", "endTime": "1540.9651", "body": "And innocence, you know, kind of that Lucia dilemma more type of thing of or the singer who originated the role of Carmen, her other major role origination was Mignon in Tomas' opera." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1540.9651", "endTime": "1542.165", "body": "Oh, yeah. That's right." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1542.165", "endTime": "1550.645", "body": "Which again is like this pure innocent girl who's full of I mean, it's like Goethe Roeder. So, of course, it's just like that kind of Gretchen and Faust vibe." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1550.645", "endTime": "1553.06", "body": "Yeah. So way ahead of its time." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1553.3", "endTime": "1560.02", "body": "It pissed all the right people off, I think, too. You know, I'm looking at some of these reviews. Susan McCleary puts the reviews in English in her book." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1560.02", "endTime": "1561.3", "body": "Oh my god. Can you read one?" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1561.3", "endTime": "1566.8348", "body": "Jean Pierre Oscar Comitant said, a plague on these females vomited from hell." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1566.9149", "endTime": "1567.7949", "body": "Hell, yeah." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1567.955", "endTime": "1591.37", "body": "It is a delirium of castanets, of leers of provocative hip swinging, of knife stabs gallantly distributed among both sexes, of cigarettes roasted by the ladies, smutty rather than sensuous. To preserve the morale and the behavior of the impressionable dragoons and toreadors who surround this demoiselle, she should be gagged, a stop put to the unbridled twisting of her hips." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1591.745", "endTime": "1608.2499", "body": "Listen. If I read that, I would immediately wanna go see this piece. I'm like, that sounds like a party. Exactly. And I understand how that scandalized all the French people who would be easily scandalized by that, but that's not an indictment." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1608.25", "endTime": "1613.29", "body": "I think that speaks like, yes. I agree with that. That's what that opera is. He got" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1613.29", "endTime": "1634.35", "body": "it right. Achille Delosier said, revolting sense of the word. A woman mad over her body giving herself to the first soldier who comes along out of caprice bravado by chance blindly. Then after having lost him his honor, treated him with scorn, she deserts him to run after a handsomer fellow whom in turn she will leave when she likes." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1634.35", "endTime": "1640.35", "body": "That's fucking right. Facts. Facts. Where's the lie? Men are those are men who are mad about this." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1640.35", "endTime": "1647.55", "body": "Except the first soldier who comes along. Well, it's probably he's the first soldier that came along. He just was the one that was not interested in her." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1647.735", "endTime": "1658.455", "body": "He was just the one that day that wasn't making eye contact with her. You don't know what she did yesterday. You don't know what she did the day before that. That's misogyny. Like, the fact that that's a bad thing." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1658.455", "endTime": "1660.295", "body": "All those things are bad things. That's misogyny." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1660.3", "endTime": "1673.66", "body": "The same guy Delosier also calls her a savage, half g slur, half and delusion, sensual, mocking, shameless, believing neither in god nor in the devil. She is the veritable prostitute of the gutter and the crossroads." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1674.415", "endTime": "1675.455", "body": "Hell yeah, brother." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1675.455", "endTime": "1677.695", "body": "Like, tattoo that on my lower back." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1677.935", "endTime": "1680.175", "body": "A veritable prostitute. What was that line again?" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1680.175", "endTime": "1682.895", "body": "A veritable prostitute of the gutter and the crossroads." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1682.895", "endTime": "1688.2098", "body": "Hell yeah. Put that on my forehead. That's my new trans guy. LinkedIn bio." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1689.1699", "endTime": "1705.945", "body": "It did get one good review from Theodore de Bonville. He said instead of those pretty sky blue and pale pink puppets who were the joy of our fathers, Bizet has tried to show real men and real women dazzled and tortured by passion. Yes. There you go. That's also it." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1706.0249", "endTime": "1716.24", "body": "This is just a bunch of dudes getting panty twisted that a woman has a hobby. Yeah. God forbid. God forbid a woman should have a hobby. Stealing from men." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1716.24", "endTime": "1719.76", "body": "I think you can say Carmen is like the epitome of be gay, do crime." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1720.56", "endTime": "1739.265", "body": "Listen. As a certified gay person, when I portray Carmen, my Carmen is gay. My Carmen is not actually interested sexually in men, but is only interested in power and what they can do. I think this is okay. So this will get into, like, the actual role of Carmen." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1739.265", "endTime": "1762.765", "body": "I think this is what makes Carmen as a role so amazing and so enticing because it can be done so many different ways. And I will never say one way is right and one way is wrong. I can say, so there's some ways that I don't like, and there's some ways that I do it that people don't like. I'm positive of that. But I feel like it's one of those roles that you have to put yourself and how you feel about the world through the filter of her." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1762.925", "endTime": "1779.47", "body": "Like, everyone's like, oh, everyone wants to play Carmen because she's so sexy. I'm like, no. Everyone wants to play Carmen because she's honest and brutal and likes to have a good time. So how do you fit in that puzzle piece? And for me, it's about being mean to men on stage and humiliating them." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1779.47", "endTime": "1798.16", "body": "And my fatal flaw is that I humiliate one to the point where he kills me. Although the last time, not the last time I did Carmen at SFO, but the time before that, the fight scene at the end, we both got licks in. Like, I fought. And my Don Jose Dane was fantastic. Great dude to work with." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1798.7201", "endTime": "1820.095", "body": "Was really, really down for me to like, get some stabs in, get some licks in. And how we ended the death scene was wild. We fought over the knife and he, like, I lost it at some point. And then he, got on top of me and choked me to death as he's singing. Like, I'm still dying until, the very last." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1821.84", "endTime": "1844.025", "body": "And this is happening the furthest downstage you could possibly get. And I think I was inspired I was telling the fight choreographer, hey, I just watched the first season of The Sopranos. And the way the first season ends is Tony Soprano just viciously chokes this dude to death for two minutes. I think we should do that because it was like frightening. And my parents hated it." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1844.025", "endTime": "1852.985", "body": "My parents hated watching that. That was my partner. They do not like watching me die, but it was so cool. The audience was just for thirty seconds silent." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1853.86", "endTime": "1864.8999", "body": "Well, that's the thing. Right? Like, even even stabbing, those are things where you have to get very close to the person, and you have to it takes time. It's not just a gunshot and that's" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1864.98", "endTime": "1874.1849", "body": "A stab to the stomach, it takes you so long to die. You die from bleeding out. But choking someone takes two minutes. With the right attitude. With the right attitude." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1874.4249", "endTime": "1878.6649", "body": "Did you see that Carmen where the the Italian one where the Carmen killed the" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1878.6649", "endTime": "1891.66", "body": "Don Jose? I've heard about it. There was also of the many, many figure skating programs set to Carmen, one of them is with Carmen also killing Jose I the mean," }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1891.66", "endTime": "1892.62", "body": "why can't we do that?" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1892.86", "endTime": "1902.205", "body": "What she says in the card aria I think it's in the card ARIA They both die. Both die. Exactly. She doesn't say what or I guess she does say what order. That's the problem." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1902.205", "endTime": "1914.5599", "body": "Yeah. First me and then him. The thing is we literally just saw people harvesting kidneys in this Carmen. I think we can take some liberties. I think why do we take so many liberties with Carmen?" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1914.5599", "endTime": "1927.175", "body": "Like, could set it in space. You can set it in, like, Los Angeles and Hollywood. You can do all of these things, but we can't change this one thing where she has to die at the end. She has to die. There's no ifs, ands, or buts." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1927.8151", "endTime": "1930.215", "body": "Just because she says it once in the card area." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1930.4551", "endTime": "1945.24", "body": "Not to go back to mother Susan McClary, but to go back to mother. She argues really vehemently against the idea that Carmen is about fate. She says it's about many things, but fate isn't one of them. And yet everybody fixates on the fate theme is what you hear." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1947.16", "endTime": "1948.6", "body": "Palm. Palm." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1948.68", "endTime": "1976.01", "body": "Like, that's the thing that leads you in from the overture into the beginning. It's the leitmotif that's playing when she first throws the rose to Jose. But, again, it it almost feels like the fate of it is kind of like Carmen's sexuality where it's not the main focus. And I think this gets into the meat of discussing Carmen is that you're talking about politics. You're talking about exoticism and othering, orientalism." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1976.01", "endTime": "1980.25", "body": "Yeah. You're talking about gender and sexual politics, and you're talking about class." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1980.25", "endTime": "2006.1901", "body": "Yeah. I mean, to put such an emphasis on the inevitability of it all is basically reinforcing these systems that this opera is calling into light, these like oppressive systems. It's saying that femcide and oppression is inevitable. There is such I mean, there's this such circular thing of the inevitability of her death. I mean, it's also the thing like people love to watch whores die." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2006.1901", "endTime": "2023.215", "body": "They love it. They love it. It it's like absolution. It made me think of the second season of White Lotus where the two prostitutes were the ones that got away with the cash and they had they were the only people that had a happy ending and the whole time we're being led to believe that something bad's gonna happen to them. I love that for them." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2023.215", "endTime": "2027.72", "body": "And I wish that for all sex workers, like, run away with the cash and have a happy ending." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2027.72", "endTime": "2070.665", "body": "One of the things I love about Carmen too is that every time I see it or listen to it, it's one of those operas where you still hear different things. And something I noticed with this time around is in the opening with the soldiers chorus. It's such a banality of evil thing. It's so languid. And I looked this up because I was curious." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2070.665", "endTime": "2079.385", "body": "And Bizet fought in Paris during the Franco Prussian War in the early eighteen seventies. Mhmm. So this is a guy who knew from occupation." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2079.385", "endTime": "2079.625", "body": "Yeah." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2079.91", "endTime": "2095.03", "body": "And I find that so fascinating to listen to that chorus and to just consider even the way that he portrays military power in that opera. And, like, the fact that the most militaristic music you get is from the kids chorus, and they're just there to fuck with the police." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2095.03", "endTime": "2105.485", "body": "Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting. I mean, this production that we just saw definitely turned that on its head a little bit, like the fuck with the police. I I mean" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2105.725", "endTime": "2111.8801", "body": "I still think that kids chorus were like the ghosts of children that that Oh. Horse have had killed. Very clearly." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2112.3599", "endTime": "2133.6448", "body": "Men find it very dangerous when they are not central to your life anymore. And you are no longer considered I mean, you're considered something that is dangerous that can upset their world, which is what Carmen does from the get go. And, yeah, she still sleeps with men, but it doesn't mean that she will do anything for them or bend to their will or" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2134.285", "endTime": "2139.89", "body": "She's not sleeping with them for them. She's sleeping with them for her. That's right. People just" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2140.13", "endTime": "2152.3699", "body": "men just do not like it when women just do what they want. I think that's like this crux of Carmen. I hate when men direct it. I don't think men should direct Carmen. I had to think men shouldn't direct most operas." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2152.615", "endTime": "2167.095", "body": "Because I mean, even this, like, the one we just saw, like, she still had a lot of agency. I love that she wielded the knife so much. I love that she always almost always had a weapon on her. And she, like, sliced her hand in the beginning, like." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2167.25", "endTime": "2169.5698", "body": "And smeared the blood all over Jose's chest." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2169.5698", "endTime": "2172.53", "body": "Yeah. I loved that. And still It was like" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2172.53", "endTime": "2173.65", "body": "the lion king." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2174.77", "endTime": "2176.8499", "body": "But even" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 3", "startTime": "2176.8499", "endTime": "2181.205", "body": "still at the end, she's, like, rendered kind of powerless. Did you read the Queen of" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2181.205", "endTime": "2196.53", "body": "the Night, Alexander Cheese novel? Mm-mm. It is a massive novel about an American opera singer in Paris during this whole era. So, like, you get cameos from the Verdes. Think he based it at least in part on Celeste Mocadore, who was also, you know, who" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 3", "startTime": "2196.6902", "endTime": "2196.9302", "body": "Mhmm." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2196.9302", "endTime": "2207.2502", "body": "Most people believe Carmen herself was based on. Yeah. And at one point, one of the characters says of her that she is just pure theater." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2207.4102", "endTime": "2207.6501", "body": "And" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2208.425", "endTime": "2216.7449", "body": "I think that is really who Carmen is. And you understand why. Part of that theatricality is a means of protection." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2216.7449", "endTime": "2217.385", "body": "Mhmm." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2217.385", "endTime": "2225.0", "body": "And and like self preservation within the world that she has to exist in. Mhmm. She can't control that, but she can control the spectacle around her." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2225.08", "endTime": "2267.915", "body": "Yeah. The final duet, I mean, it is the best music of the whole opera in my humble opinion. I love it so much that I have some of it tattooed on my body because I'm that kind of opera dude. The which is like She is not dying passively. If you wanna kill me, you have to fucking fight me." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2268.3152", "endTime": "2277.435", "body": "I will fight you to the death. And that's why when it's staged in a way where she's like, just let me go. I'm just a girl. No. She's not." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2277.435", "endTime": "2304.0352", "body": "Like, she needs to get some licks and she needs, I think she does feel tied by fate. But I don't think it's just the cards. I think it's a feeling where she's intrinsically like tied to this person and she knows that he's going to follow her until she dies. Like he's going if she didn't die at this time, if he didn't kill her in front of Escamillo's big bullfight, he would find her another time. Like she's going to be haunted by this her whole life and she knows that." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2304.355", "endTime": "2317.2202", "body": "So I don't think that her arriving to talk to him and telling her friends to go, go on, go on, just leave me. I'll be fine. Even though they're like, he's here and he's he looks crazy. He's disheveled. He's probably got a weapon." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2317.2202", "endTime": "2334.0251", "body": "He's gonna like, let's go girl. Like, she's not resigning to die. She's resigning to be like, listen, this is gonna keep coming up and I'm gonna nip this in the bud now. And I might die or I might not. Like, I don't think she expects in that moment to die." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2334.0251", "endTime": "2355.945", "body": "I think she expects in that moment to be confronted with him and whatever happens, happens. But she knows what will not happen is that she will not relent and she will not go with him and she will not go down without a fight. And I think where so many productions go wrong is that I think it's okay if she shows fear. It's okay to be fearful of death. She's human." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2355.945", "endTime": "2367.77", "body": "She's human. But it is not okay to just accept it because there's a big scary man with a knife. That's just antithetical to everything she is." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2368.33", "endTime": "2374.4102", "body": "I wanna talk about Escamillo because Yeah. He's the other person, you know, I said that Carmen is like the one person who doesn't change." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2374.4102", "endTime": "2374.81", "body": "Mhmm." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2374.81", "endTime": "2385.715", "body": "And you also have these two I think one of the things I love about the structure of this piece is you have two overlapping love triangles. You have Carmen, Jose, and Mikaela. Mhmm. And then it gets taken over by Carmen, Jose, and Escamillo. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2385.715", "endTime": "2401.71", "body": "And at the same time, Escamillo also doesn't really change that. Like, he's he's so for someone who takes up so much space with his big dick energy Mhmm. He is really, like, kind of incidental even more so than Nikola. Exactly. That's a fuck boy." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2401.71", "endTime": "2414.435", "body": "A harmless fuck boy. He's a fun fuck boy. Yeah. And, And, like, he and Carmen are perfect for each other in that way because they both know what they're about. He's not really like, he says to Jose in the mountain scene, Carmen's love affairs don't last very long." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2414.435", "endTime": "2415.395", "body": "He's not there for" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2415.635", "endTime": "2433.8398", "body": "He knows what she's about, and he's into her program. He's like, yeah. We'll have a good time for a while. I'll get her all nice and cushed up with my bullfighting money and then she's gonna leave me and I will go on to the next girl. Like, in the ideal world, I mean, this is the same thing with like Cozy where like the right couples should have been together." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2434.5352", "endTime": "2445.735", "body": "Like, Guglielmo and Dorabella are the correct couple to be together. And the other two are also the correct couple to be together. And the only person Jose is right for is his mommy." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2446.53", "endTime": "2450.53", "body": "Do you think that he actually has a mommy? Or do you think that it's a psycho situation?" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2452.05", "endTime": "2466.635", "body": "Oh, god. I mean, there's this definitely this failure to launch vibe about him. I think the unhinged mama's boy is like archetypal to him. I think that is so essential to his character that," }, { "speaker": "Speaker 3", "startTime": "2466.795", "endTime": "2471.035", "body": "you know I'm I love my mom. So I'm not I'm a feminist. I love my mom." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2471.035", "endTime": "2479.28", "body": "But he like will still like gaslight and be violent towards women. Like, this dude exists. I know this dude." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2479.52", "endTime": "2483.44", "body": "He's Mike Pence. I mean, I bet if he married me, Kaila, he would start to call her Oh" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2485.28", "endTime": "2485.68", "body": "my god." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2486.735", "endTime": "2505.7", "body": "One of the things that never sits right with me in a staging of Carmen is when you have act three in the mountains after the chorus. Mhmm. And you have Carmen, Don Quijero, Remendado, Fresquita, and Mercedes. And they're singing about How tough work is. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2505.7", "endTime": "2536.98", "body": "Like Stangerous. It's this is good work, but you have to have a a constitution for it. Which he does not. And I believe it when they and this is the thing is they have him singing it as well. And I get that it's just you need to get all the soloists in there." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2536.98", "endTime": "2559.04", "body": "Yes. But with him, it always feels like, you know, that guy who does like two CrossFit classes and then makes it his whole personality. And it always feels so fake coming from Jose. I believe it a 100% with everyone else. But the fact that he's in there, it always just feels like so hollow and so fake Mhmm." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2559.44", "endTime": "2572.665", "body": "Even knowing that he is a person who is capable of murder and capable of doing really horrible things. But he also doesn't like taking orders from these people. It's very clear. It's obvious, like," }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2573.4648", "endTime": "2599.89", "body": "at the beginning of act three, they need to show that Carmen and Jose do not they're not having a good time. And the audience, unless they read the fucking program notes of the program, they don't know how much time has passed. They don't know that it's been like weeks, months maybe. And like, all we see is like, you have just the sextet in this chorus and this recit. But we need to show that Jose is fucking annoying." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2599.89", "endTime": "2610.335", "body": "He sucks to travel with. He whines and complains about everything. He wants so much attention and so much love from Carmen, and she's working. They're working. And he's like not a good community member." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2610.335", "endTime": "2626.11", "body": "I think the Francesca Zambello production that I just did at SFO, she emphasizes the importance of Carmen having a community. She is a community leader. She is surrounded by her friends. She's surrounded by comrades. Everyone is team Carmen." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2626.11", "endTime": "2646.04", "body": "Mhmm. And when they're in the mountains and everyone is team Carmen and Jose is acting up, of course, everyone hates him too. And he that, like, exacerbates this anger. Like, he is he is then the other one. It is flipped on its side and he's now the one who's the outlier and not welcome and how easily they can kick him out." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2646.04", "endTime": "2659.32", "body": "And now he's like, you know, he's ditched the military. He's ditched me, Kyla. He's ditched his mom and now he's lost out on this community of people. And so he really has nothing anymore. And that's what like, I think adds to his desperation." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2660.0151", "endTime": "2685.4", "body": "There's an epigraph in the Merry Maid. He quotes a Greek author who and the quote is every woman is as bitter as bile, but each has two good moments, one in the bed and the other in the grave. And it's also written in the original Greek because at that time, men would have learned Greek at school and would have been able to read it, and most women would not have been able to read Greek." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2685.4", "endTime": "2688.9749", "body": "That's shady shit. Yeah. My god." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2688.9749", "endTime": "2700.255", "body": "Yeah. He he really just said the quiet part out loud. Asshole. But what I love about this is how much Bizet works to problematize that or to undermine it." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2700.415", "endTime": "2724.1653", "body": "Yeah. I mean, that was I think, again, that was something that drew me to the opera so much is that when I experienced the actual opera for the first time, I think I saw it when I was like 16 at Binghamton, because I was living in Pennsylvania at the time. After I'd seen it, I read the novel because I'm like, this is a feminist opera. I like this. And then I read the novel, I'm like, oh, no." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2724.8052", "endTime": "2738.82", "body": "This is not very feminist. But it is the difference between the libretto and the opera is so stark and so interesting. And I wonder, like, who spearheaded? Was that Halevi who did that? Or was that Bizet who did that?" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2738.9", "endTime": "2769.72", "body": "So much of it we don't know because so many of the letters from the document that documented the creation of it were destroyed. I think either by Bazet's wife or Halavi, the librettist who was also her cousin. So there is a lot that we don't know about it. But I also have a feeling that Bizet was, like, down for a good time. This is a guy who also had at least a platonic friendship with Celeste Mogadore, if not an intimate relationship with her." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 3", "startTime": "2769.72", "endTime": "2769.96", "body": "Yeah." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2770.585", "endTime": "2789.8801", "body": "And was kind of not precious about her status as a sex worker in Paris. Yeah. This is one of the passages that critics cite when they say or musicologists cite when they suggest that La Mogadore was a model for Carmen. Mhmm. She writes in her memoirs, my character was formed early." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2789.9602", "endTime": "2797.0", "body": "I loved passionately or hated furiously. Yeah. When I hate people, I wish they would die. Moderation is no part of my nature." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2797.335", "endTime": "2798.135", "body": "That's right, girl." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2798.135", "endTime": "2811.415", "body": "Joy, sorrow, affection, resentment, laziness, work, I have overdone them all. My life has been one long excess. I feel it with a passion that devours me. Two defects in my character have protected me. I have always been capricious and proud." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2811.96", "endTime": "2817.8", "body": "No one among women whose tendency it is to say yes derives more pleasure than I do from saying no." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2817.8", "endTime": "2818.44", "body": "Hell yeah." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2818.44", "endTime": "2822.28", "body": "So the men to whom I have given the most are those who ask the least of me." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2822.3599", "endTime": "2824.68", "body": "Hell yeah. What's her sign? What do you think?" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2824.68", "endTime": "2826.3599", "body": "Oh, that's a good question." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2826.3599", "endTime": "2840.325", "body": "Sagittarius. That sounds like a Sagittarius. Yeah. No, it's very clear like, I mean, you can tell that also, I think the way he writes vocal music for the treble voice, very friendly. I mean, I love I love singing." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2840.325", "endTime": "2848.34", "body": "Carmen is one of the easiest things to sing. It's just sits in a nice pocket. It's fun. I don't feel strained by it. It's not difficult." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2848.98", "endTime": "2849.86", "body": "I feel like" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2850.34", "endTime": "2857.875", "body": "And a lot of that too is thanks to Celestine Gallie Mariette who made him rewrite the Habanera, like, 30 times or" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2857.875", "endTime": "2859.7952", "body": "something. Really? I did not know that." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2859.955", "endTime": "2887.285", "body": "Good for her. Yeah. So this is the other thing with Celestine Gallie Mariette is that she was really invested in not only how this piece was going to be written for her voice and, like, probably was a super annoying colleague to work with because she demanded, like, rewrite after rewrite. Yeah. But a year before she started working on Carmen, I think, was when her sister, who was also a singer, was stabbed in the street by her husband." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2887.765", "endTime": "2910.66", "body": "And at his trial, he declared that he could not live without his wife. He married her when she was 20, and he loved her, then as he did on that first day. So you have to imagine, like, this is a singer who is super invested in doing justice to a role that she is then living out that is, like, super closer because she was at his trial." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2910.66", "endTime": "2916.1252", "body": "Yeah. I mean, yeah, I'm I'm positive she definitely carried some of that with her." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2916.2852", "endTime": "2925.965", "body": "Oh, of course. I mean, and I think that Bizet Knew that. He must have because this was also like a big deal. Yeah. This was this was in the news." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2926.0452", "endTime": "2937.92", "body": "And I think this was one of the things that like, to move from women into class, allegedly on opening night, Bizet said, don't you see that all these bourgeois have not understood a wretched word of the work I've written for them?" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2937.92", "endTime": "2938.4", "body": "Mhmm. And" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2938.4", "endTime": "2939.84", "body": "it's like, well, buddy, yeah." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2939.84", "endTime": "2941.92", "body": "Doug, you give people too much credit." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2942.135", "endTime": "2972.2551", "body": "Like, you made an HBO show, and you put it on TBS. Yes. Exactly. And this is, I think, you know, something that is how like, is being talked about a lot this year too because because he died, like, right yeah. So this is a legend is that Celestine Galliemarie, when she did the card aria on the thirty third performance of Carmen fainted." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2972.335", "endTime": "2983.07", "body": "And it was at that exact moment that Bizet died. Interesting. But, yeah, he he died without really having seen any of his work become a major success." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "2983.39", "endTime": "2993.135", "body": "That's such a bummer. If only he knew If only he could see Beyonce. If only he could see Beyonce do it and Dorothy Dandridge and With a" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "2993.135", "endTime": "3004.895", "body": "lot of operas, I think you could say, okay, if this hadn't been written, it would suck, but it wouldn't be the end of the world. And I think this is one where it would be really difficult to imagine a world without it." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "3004.895", "endTime": "3023.205", "body": "No. The archetype spans, I mean, not just like the archetype of characters, but the archetype of the story. I can't So good. I can't imagine an opera world the world of opera in which this opera didn't exist. Because then magic flute would be the most performed opera, and that's fucking depressing." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "3023.765", "endTime": "3050.195", "body": "The sort of question that I'm looking at with this podcast in general is we have these 100 operas, and there are so many, like, these are the 50 greatest operas. These are the 100 greatest operas. We have all of these rankings. And a lot of them are the same operas just over and over and over. And I think we get caught up in this a lot in general with canon is, is it great because it's canon or is it canon because it's great?" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "3050.195", "endTime": "3065.92", "body": "It's canon because it's great. Carmen is singular. I mean, even when it's sung poorly, if if there's interesting things happen, I'm sat. I'm watching. Obviously, when it's a stupid production or a bonkers production that is so confusing, I'm I'm I'm still riveted." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "3066.0", "endTime": "3071.865", "body": "What's next? Yeah. They're gonna they're gonna sing the Cardaria holding kidneys to their eyes." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "3071.945", "endTime": "3074.025", "body": "Get bull testicles after the Tori She's" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "3074.025", "endTime": "3084.905", "body": "gonna drop bull testicles into the pit. I thought that was so charming. I wanna see more of this. I'm but even I feel like I love a traditional Carmen too. I love a traditional one as much as I love a cookie one." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "3084.905", "endTime": "3089.52", "body": "As long as it's truthful, everyone on stage is telling the truth." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "3090.0", "endTime": "3099.2", "body": "And the legacy of Carmen too, we were just talking about this earlier. Like, there are a lot of operas where if they never happened, it would be sad." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "3099.655", "endTime": "3100.0552", "body": "Mhmm." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "3100.0552", "endTime": "3111.655", "body": "But it wouldn't necessarily be the end of the world. Or it wouldn't have necessarily a massive impact on the culture that came after." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 3", "startTime": "3111.655", "endTime": "3112.135", "body": "Mhmm." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "3112.135", "endTime": "3118.74", "body": "But with Carmen, I wonder, do we have Verismo opera if we don't have Carmen? Yeah. I mean, like," }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "3118.74", "endTime": "3125.78", "body": "it did I do feel like kind of bridge that gap between lofty and, like," }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "3126.575", "endTime": "3129.4548", "body": "very pink and pink and blue paper dolls. Mhmm." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "3129.775", "endTime": "3143.7202", "body": "And then the real flesh and blood people who make miss I think it shows again, I believe in women's rights and their wrongs. It showed people making mistakes. It showed people being messy. Real life humans that we could possibly know. And, yeah, I I think Possibly." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "3143.4001", "endTime": "3143.6401", "body": "Carmen" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "3145.48", "endTime": "3149.8801", "body": "I've dated a couple of Jose's in my time, and it's just like, please leave me alone." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "3152.12", "endTime": "3154.12", "body": "Oh, god. It is so unfortunate." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "3156.0652", "endTime": "3171.665", "body": "Yeah. Without Carmen, I don't know how we get to Verismo because that like, Bizet just infused so much verisimilitude into that opera in a way that people were not ready for. I don't know if you have people loving Boheme as much if they don't have Carmen before it." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "3171.78", "endTime": "3174.26", "body": "Yeah. She's the original Boheme. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "3174.26", "endTime": "3188.165", "body": "And we're looking at a legacy that is not just operatic. No. It's not just musical. Commercial. Carmen was played on film by Hollywood's first sex symbol, Theta Bara." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "3188.165", "endTime": "3200.245", "body": "Yep. As well as Rita Hayworth, Dorothy Dandridge, Grace Chang, and Beyonce. Films have been made by Godard, by Cecil B. DeMille, a Hong Kong musical from the sixties, a spaghetti western. Hell, yeah." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "3200.49", "endTime": "3216.095", "body": "The Olympics. I once made the very poor decision of watching every single Carmen performance on the Olympics to rank them for Van Magazine. And you had the battle of the Carmans in '88 between an American skater and an East German skater." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "3216.095", "endTime": "3216.895", "body": "Oh my gosh." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "3216.895", "endTime": "3223.2952", "body": "Both skating in the finals to Carmen programs and the iconic Five Nights at Freddy's video game music." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "3223.695", "endTime": "3225.5352", "body": "I'm not familiar with that." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "3225.775", "endTime": "3228.95", "body": "It is you would like it." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "3228.95", "endTime": "3234.71", "body": "Okay. Great. It's appreciation, not appropriation. Exactly." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "3235.27", "endTime": "3242.3098", "body": "Love Ends you, Bizet. Love you, dude. RIP, Georges Bizet, you would have loved Cam Girls." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "3242.915", "endTime": "3244.755", "body": "And and Carmen the Hip Opera." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "3244.755", "endTime": "3245.955", "body": "And, yeah, and Beyonce." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "3245.955", "endTime": "3247.475", "body": "You would love Beyonce." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "3247.635", "endTime": "3249.715", "body": "Nikola, where can people find you online?" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "3250.275", "endTime": "3258.195", "body": "Www.nikolaprintz.com. I'm on Instagram at it is Nikola." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "3258.94", "endTime": "3262.7", "body": "Fantastic. Thank you so much for for being here. Yeah. Thank you." } ] }