Carmen Abroad
Bizet's Opera on the Global Stage

A transnational history of the performance, reception, translation, adaptation and appropriation of Bizet's Carmen from 1875 to 1945.

Richard Langham Smith (Edited by), Clair Rowden (Edited by)

9781108723039, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 23 June 2022

385 pages, 11 tables
24.4 x 16.8 x 1.9 cm, 0.67 kg

'… an intriguing, productive assembly of Carmen's sojourns around the globe that will enrich our understanding of Bizet's opera and provide new paths for future research.' Susan Rutherford, Revue de musicologie

From the 'old world' to the 'new' and back again, this transnational history of the performance and reception of Bizet's Carmen – whose subject has become a modern myth and its heroine a symbol – provides new understanding of the opera's enduring yet ever-evolving and resituated presence and popularity. This book examines three stages of cultural transfer: the opera's establishment in the repertoire; its performance, translation, adaptation and appropriation in Europe, the Americas and Australia; its cultural 'work' in Soviet Russia, in Japan in the era of Westernisation, in southern, regionalist France and in Carmen's 'homeland', Spain. As the volume reveals the ways in which Bizet's opera swiftly travelled the globe from its Parisian premiere, readers will understand how the story, the music, the staging and the singers appealed to audiences in diverse geographical, artistic and political contexts.

List of figures
List of tables
List of contributors
Foreword and acknowledgements
Part I. Establishment in Paris and the repertoire: 1. Carmen at home and abroad Clair Rowden and Richard Langham Smith
2. Carmen's second chance: revival in Vienna Laura Moeckli
3. Carmen faces Paris and the provinces Clair Rowden
4. Carmen dusted down: Albert Carré's 1898 revival at the Opéra-Comique Michela Niccolai
5. Refashioning Carmen at the Théâtre de La Monnaie, 1902 Bruno Forment
6. How Carmen became a repertory opera in Italy and in Italian Matthew Franke
Part II. Across frontiers: 7. A new performance for a new world: Carmen in America Kristen M. Turner
8. The unstoppable march of time: Carmen, and New Orleans in transition Charlotte Bentley
9. The return of the habanera: Carmen's early reception in Latin America José Manuel Izquierdo, Jaime Cortés-Polanía and Juan Francisco Sans
10. From Spain to Lusophone lands: Carmen in Portugal and Brazil David Cranmer
11. Carmen in the antipodes Kerry Murphy
12. Carmen, as seen and heard in Victorian Britain Paul Rodmell
13. Celtic Carmens: rebellion and redemption Linda J. Buckley and Jennifer Millar
14. Carmen for the Czechs and Germans, 1880 to 1945 Martin Nedbal
15. Carmen in Poland prior to 1918 Renata Suchowiejko
16. A woman or a demon: Carmen in the late nineteenth-century Nordic countries Ulla-Britta Broman-Kananen
Part III. Localising Carmen: 17. Russian Carmens and 'Carmenism': from Imperial import to ideological benchmark Michelle Assay
18. The other reversed? Japan's assimilation of Carmen between 1885 and 1945 Naomi Matsumoto
19. Flamenco and the 'hispanicisation' of Bizet's Carmen in the Belle Époque Michael Christoforidis and Elizabeth Kertesz
20. Carmen at home: between Andalusia and the Basque Provinces (1845–1936) Lola San Martín Arbide
21. Carmen in the midi amphitheatres: a 'tauro-comique' spectacle Sabine Teulon Lardic
Selected Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Individual composers & musicians, specific bands & groups [AVH], Music [AV], The arts [A]