La romanza della giggia

Speranza

Driven Mad by the Floral Scent of Bizet's Carmen: Don Jose's Famous Flower Song

 

 

Serach the site for 'Carmen flower song' and you should get many pages of hits.

 

The single English horn vocalizes the pensive
melancholy elephant in the room
as the strings tremolando lights
the hypertensive atmosphere
with shimmering sparks.

Suspended collected
heartbeats punctuate the
pause in the strummed CELLOS.

The mournful melody
shifts its aural
predestination lower and
lower as Don Jose realizes that,
instead of falling into his arms and showering him love and affection,
Carmen now regards him with
contempt and indifference.

Don Jose's heart sinks in despair
as his eyes drop to the shriveled-up flower
that had kept him going in prison.

The flute and woodwinds
share in his trickling
drops of tear.

la fleur que tu m'avais jetée
IL FIOR CHE AVEVI A ME GETTATO
the flower that you threw to me

dans ma prison m'était restée
NEL CARCER TETRO IO L'HO SERBATO
had stayed with me in prison.

flétrie et sèche cette fleur
ANCHE APPASSITO IL PICCIOL FIOR
withered and dried, yet this flower 

gardait toujours sa douce odeur
IL SUO PROFUMO AVEVA ANCOR
always kept its sweet odor.

------

Drifting into hopeful remembrance, don Jose recovers himself, as his thought modulates in short morale-searching climbs.

Don Jose's courage is bolstered by the mirroring English horn as they work their way BACK to D flat major.

The flutes and harp materialize, in thin air, the vision he had enshrined of his beloved.

et pendant

NOTTE E DI
and

des heures entières
 NEL CARCERE OSCURO
in all the locked-up hours

  sur mes yeux
IO COSI
I'd

fermant mes paupières
MIO BEN TE LO GIURO

I'd close my eyes and remember

 de cette odeur
M'INEBRIAI

as its sweet scent

je m'enivrais
DEL CARO ODOR
  enliven me, 

et dans la nuit
E T'INVOCAI
and I'd see you

je te voyais
LONTANA ANCOR
in the night!

The deep night of Jose's remembrance
lets up, as his profusion turns INWARD, along with the orchestra.

Je me prenais

 IO QUESTO AMOR
I cursed the hours

â te maudire

MALEDICEVA

  that we met

â te détester

E NEL DOLOR
wanting to hate

â me dire

IO RIPETEVA

 or forget you

pourquoi faut-il

PER QUAL VOLVER
why was it

que le destin

PER QUAL DESTIN

meant for destiny

l'ait mise lâ

L'EBBI A VEDER
 to ever put us

sur mon chemin

SUL MIO CAMMIN

to ever put us together

------

Rage and passion are just two sides of the same coin.

Convinced that he has suffered enough for her to reform herself into his vision, Jose battles the woodwinds' Carmen.

All attempts to break free from Don Jose's
engulfing lust as the orchestral strings and brass
stir up in waves of punctuated delusion.

Puis je m'accusais de blasphème

AHI DI ME STESSO ERO L'ORRO

Then I pled guilty of blasphemy

et je ne sentais en moi-même

E NON AVEVO IN QUESTO COR

and if I could from any thought,

Je ne sentais qu'un seul désir

E NON SENTIA CHE UN SOL DESIR

I thought only of one desire,

un seul désir, un seul espoir

UN SOL DESIR, UN SOL PENSIER

one sole desire, one sole aspiration

Te revoir, ô Carmen, oui, te revoir

TE RIVEDER

to see you, o Carmen, yes, you, again

-----

Coda:

Back in D flat major again, and now with the sympathetic harp and cellos at his disposal, don Jose attempts to draw her back, toning his profusion down to soft caresses, as the strings reflect Carmen's unresponsiveness.
 

Car tu n'avais eu qu'à paraître

CHE TI BASTO SOL PER MOSTRARTI

Cause you only had to appear

qu'â jeter un regard sur moi

UN GUARDO SOL GETTAR SU ME

and cast just one look upon me

pour t'emparer de tout mon être

IN QUESTO AMOR PER ATTERARTI

to claim possession of my being.

O ma Carmen! .................................. O my Carmen!

Et j'étais une chose à toi

LO SCHAVO SUO CARMEN MI FE'

And I am only one thing to you!

A soul-slaughtering silence.

What is there left for a man to do?

Carmen, je t'aime

CARMEN IO T'AMO

Carmen, I love you!

With Don Jose too emotionally spent to breath another word, the strings take up his original plea to its romantic end on the receptive tone of the English horn.

One is left to project
wishfully that a touching
proclamation like this would melt even the iciest heart.

But Carmen's heart is set only on
her own choices and not his.
 

If you want to know how the story ends, you'll have to get a CD or DVD or, better yet, go to a live performance of this most musically catchy of opera at the local opera company near you.

Then be sure to come back and tell opera old timers what you think of it.

What do you think of the resolutely independent gypsy?

Is she really any worse than the man many count as her male counterpart, Don Juan (Don Giovanni)?

After all, Carmen doesn't go around bragging about her conquest, nor does she keep a catalog of those she went to bed with.

Manipulative, unapologetically selfish, brazenly sexual, enterprising against prevailing culture....

Bizet's Carmen is overtly all of that, and yet she still
merit this sincere "to-heck-with-male-dignity" serenade
from a man who started the opera as the only male on the stage
who dared to look elsewhere when the vamp is around.

It is absurd. It is irrational.... And it is as true to life as it gets!