21 - Carmen in the Midi Amphitheatres: A ‘Tauro-Comique’ Spectacle

Summary

When the arenas of the midi became involved in the performance of opera in the middle years of the Third Republic, Bizet’s Carmen became a shining example of their cultural democratisation. The Roman amphitheatres (Arles and Nîmes) and the more modern ones (Bayonne, Toulouse) became home to summer performances and to Spanish-style bullfights, the popularity of which had been growing since the time of Napoléon III. Moreover, from 1899 organisers saw the potential attraction of including a real corrida in place of the unseen spectacle in Act IV of Carmen. This chapter examines such hybrid spectacles – labelled as ‘opéra tauro-comique’ by the newspaper Le Torero – how the disparate components of these two forms were articulated and in what form they were presented. Is it possible to perceive anything more than Spanish local colour and a profane ritual extending to the putting to death of the bull, foreshadowing that of La Carmencita? This rite had the potential to federalise two meridional identities readily opposed to state Jacobinism. How did diverse audiences react to this blend of spectacles, so popular as to be programmed at Whitsun ferias in the ‘Occitan plazas’ from 1952 until 1981?