Carmen's Charming Origins
by John J. Church
Etymology, the study of the origins of words, provides an interesting bit of information on one of opera's most popular characters. To call a woman charming in medieval England meant that she was surely about to endure the torture chamber or some other horrendous ordeal. She would almost certainly be a social outcast due to her charming nature. The English language inherited the word charm from the French charme, which in turn comes from the Latin carmen . A carmen was a song, usually characterized by an element of evil. It also took the form of a wicked chant or incantation of magic power. In fact, our innocent charm bracelet, worn since the 1860s, originated as a charm to ward off evil spirits. By Shakespeare's time, the word seems to have lost some of its earlier connotations, and now, of course, it is quite a compliment to refer to a person as charming.
The story used by Bizet and his librettists for the opera Carmen had its origins in a tale of coincidence and serendipity. In 1830, the twenty-seven-year-old Prosper Mérimée traveled to Spain, often riding aimlessly around the countryside with a hired Spanish guide. His travels led him to a small tavern in Andalusia, the southern region of Spain. Here Mérimée was served water and gazpacho by a swarthy young woman named Carmencita. The Spanish guide was quite unnerved when he saw Carmencita and was eager to leave the tavern, though unwilling to give his reasons. Finally, the guide explained that he believed Carmencita was a witch. Mérimeé made a sketch of the young woman in his notebook, and then moved on.
Mérimée's meeting with Carmencita and a story told to him by the Countess Montijo about a Gypsy girl who had been killed by her jealous lover became the inspirations for the novel on which Carmen is based. It seems unlikely that this author, a noted linguist, would have been unaware of the Latin carmen and its relationship to the word charme in his own language. Mérimée's novel Carmen, although slightly different from the libretto used by Bizet, portrays a woman who closely resembles the early description of ?charming.' Bizet, through Carmen's arias, reveals her to be a seductress: a beguiling woman who casts spells as she sings the Habañera and the Seguidilla, and who contributes a dark, supernatural tone to the Card Trio.
The fabric of relationships that exist between Carmen, Carmencita, sorcery, charm, and singing are delightful to ponder. Mérimée, the librettists Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, and Bizet succeed in creating and portraying a character that seems to embody both the old, evil, supernatural elements and aspects of the new definitions of charm: allure, seduction, and desire.
