Castanet Song (From “Carmen”): A Song History

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Georges Bizet’s Carmen is an opera in four acts, with a libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy based on Prosper Mérimée’s novella.[1] Bizet worked on it from spring 1873 to September 1874, and it opened at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 3 March 1875, with Célestine Galli-Marié as Carmen.[2] Castanets are part of its score, listed among the percussion next to tambourine, triangle and cymbals.[2]

Lithograph of a woman dancing amid a crowd of onlookers

Francisco de Goya, The Andalusian Dance (El Vito), lithograph, ca. 1824–25. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). A Spanish dance scene, shown for the opera’s setting; it has no connection to the music.

Opening-night reactions were mixed, and some critics were shocked by a heroine with so few scruples, though the first production still ran to 45 performances.[3] Bizet did not live to see its later fame; he died at Bougival, near Paris, on 3 June 1875, at the age of 36.[3][4] A Vienna staging that October was a triumph, and Brahms is said to have attended it some twenty times.[5] By the time the Opéra-Comique revived Carmen in 1883, it had been mounted in more than 20 cities around the world.[3]

The sources consulted here do not settle which number this arrangement calls the “Castanet Song.”[6][7][8] One strong candidate is the Act 2 duet in Lillas Pastia’s tavern, where Carmen dances and sings for Don José, though sources differ on the castanets there: one synopsis has her keeping time on them,[6] while a guide to the score describes them going missing, so that she breaks a plate in two and uses the pieces instead.[7] The same guide notes that the first edition of Bizet’s vocal score lets the castanet part be played either in the orchestra or on stage by Carmen herself.[7] A Pathé cylinder by the singer Mary Boyer was issued as Carmen’s “air des castagnettes,” but Phonobase’s entry for it does not say which number that was.[8] The same act also opens with a song, the Chanson bohème sung by Carmen, Frasquita and Mercédès,[2] whose three verses speed up until Carmen drops, out of breath, onto a bench.[7]

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Sources

  1. Encyclopaedia Britannica: "Carmen".
  2. The Bizet Catalogue (Humanities Digital Workshop, Washington University in St. Louis): "Carmen".
  3. Illinois Public Media, Clef Notes: "150 Years of Carmen".
  4. Encyclopaedia Britannica: "Georges Bizet".
  5. Manitoba Opera: "Carmen Study Guide" (2020).
  6. Hampsong Foundation: "Carmen 150".
  7. Utah Symphony | Utah Opera: "Carmen: The Musical Story, Act 2".
  8. Phonobase: "Carmen ; air des castagnettes" (Pathé cylinder 608).