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Interview with Carmen: Bra-burning feminist or disgraceful Jezebel? In a rare interview, the 127-year-old vixen talks candidly about her improbable rise from tobacco factory laborer to enduring icon, her tenuous association with the feminist movement and the almost obscene frequency with which her music is used in figure-skating competitions.
a Vamp
The star of Georges Bizet's
"Carmen" speaks out on being
the first liberated woman in operaBy Scott Vogel
svogel@starbulletin.com
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Question: Let's start at the beginning, March 3, 1875, the opening night of "Carmen." The critics weren't kind, were they?
Presented by Hawaii Opera Theatre 'CARMEN'
When: 8 p.m. tonight; 4 p.m. Sunday; 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday
Where: Neal Blaisdell Concert Hall, 777 Ward Ave.
Cost: $27 to $95; discounts for students
Call: 596-7858
Answer: No.
Q: In fact, the Marquis de Thémines, writing in La Patrie--
A: --that horse's a----
Q: --called you "the veritable prostitute of the gutter." And Jean-Pierre-Oscar Comettant, another newspaper critic, declared that Carmen "should be gagged, a stop put to the unbridled twisting of her hips; she should be fastened into a straitjacket after being cooled off by a jug of water poured over her head." Ouch. That had to hurt.
A: Sure it did. But you see, that's what I got for trying to break through the glass ceiling of loose womanhood. I made the male critics nervous. In those days there wasn't a lot further a tramp could go. Sure, she could repent a la Violetta (in Verdi's "La Traviata") and live like a nun for the rest of her days. But apart from the fact that I had no desire to give up men, the transition would have never worked theatrically.
Q: Are you saying that your harlotry was necessary for dramatic consistency?
A: Why does everyone think I'm a harlot just because I flirted with a couple of handsome singers?
Q: I think we're talking more than a couple.
A: Yes, but always as a means to an end. I flirted in order to get out of jail, say, or as a way to spark my nascent smuggling career. And sometimes, yes, I was simply attempting to get my groove on. But money never changed hands.
Q: Do you think it's possible, and I'm just putting this out there, that the way you wooed both Don Jose and Escamillo simultaneously, throwing yourself at each, indicates self-esteem issues?
A: I think that any girl who spends her life rolling cigarettes is entitled to a little excitement from time to time. What's wrong with having a little fun?
Q: Well, you could get stabbed to death, for one thing.
A: Oh that. Right. What a shame it is that Georges Bizet, so brilliant a composer, should lose his courage at the last moment.
Q: What do you mean?
A: What Bizet created was nothing short of the first liberated woman in the history of opera -- a gal who does what she wants, when she wants. No apologies. It's why I've lived on in the public imagination for more than a century while all those other goody-two-shoes -- Micaela who? -- have been forgotten. I think it's safe to say that my posthumous fame is due not to the way I died -- Bizet's lame attempt at moral retribution -- but the way I lived.
Q: (sycophantically) You haven't lost a drop of the old moxie, have you?
A: Hardly.
Q: But let's get serious for a moment. How has fame changed you, Carmen?
A: Everyone talks about the endorsements. Yes, I'm rich. But there's been a trade-off. I'm public property now, tabloid fodder. You lose a certain amount of control. What can I do, for example, about a German kewpie doll named Katarina Witt using my music to score a gold medal?
Q: You should be flattered that an artist of her caliber is paying you homage.
A: Yeah, Witt's an artist all right. She skates the seguidilla wearing little more than red panties -- and I'm the hooker?
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