From George Borrow to Mary Garden
(Histoire sommaire de Carmen)
Alice, it will be recalled, adventured into Wonderland bearing a morsel of mushroom in each hand; now she munched one piece, which made her grow tall, now the other, which diminished her height. In this manner she adjusted her size to that of the various doorways and gates of the place as well as to that of the creatures she encountered. In somewhat the same fashion George Borrow, sent by the British Bible Society to distribute the Holy Word in the papalized peninsula, advanced into Spain. In one hand he held a Castilian version of the New Testament; in the other his very considerable curiosity. Doubtless he made many valiant attempts to hawk Bibles, but it is quite as certain that he never restrained his natural aptitude for the companionship of thieves, gitanos, contrabandists, and bandits. More than once his zeal in behalf of the Scriptures landed him in jail, but I can scarcely accept this as proof of his devotion to a holy cause when I remember that he had been attempting in vain to persuade certain Madrid officials to permit him to voluntarily incarcerate himself so that he might have such further opportunities for the pursuit of his studies of the "crabbed gitano" as intercourse with the prisoners might offer. As a matter of fact when he was arrested the English Ambassador secured his pardon before the day was done, but this Borrow refused to consider. He was in jail and he proposed to remain there, and remain he did, a matter of several weeks, during which period he had lengthy talks with all the prisoners, adding substantially to his foreign vocabularies.... His sympathy, indeed, was with the gitanos; he ate and drank and slept with them, sometimes in stables, sometimes in dirty lofts. If he himself did not connive at the "affairs of Egypt," at least he travelled with those who did; if he did not assist at robberies or murders, he was often aware that they were about to be committed. On one occasion he held converse, which is delightfully recorded, with Sevilla, the picador, whom Prosper Mérimée met and who is referred to in Richard Ford's "Gatherings from Spain."... We must, on the whole, thank the British Bible Society for giving Borrow the opportunity to write two strangely charming books, one of them a masterpiece, but over what Borrow did for the Bible Society it is perhaps just as well to draw a shade.
The production of two such books as "The Zincali" and "The Bible in Spain" may be regarded, however, as sufficient justification for the incorporation and continued existence of the British Bible Society. If all the information he gives us concerning the gipsies in these books is not authentic we may at least be certain that Borrow had a better opportunity for making it so than that afforded any other writer. If, therefore, he has sometimes distorted facts it is because he is first of all an artist and "The Bible in Spain" is first of all a work of art. These books appeared in the early forties and were read and admired all over Europe, awakening an interest in the Iberian Peninsula, and more especially in the Spanish gipsies, which has never since died. In the preface to the second edition of "The Zincali" Borrow relates his astonishment at the success of his book: "the voice not only of England but of the greater part of Europe, informing me that I had achieved a feat—a work in the nineteenth century with some pretensions to originality." And when a writer in "The Spectator" called "The Bible in Spain" "a 'Gil Blas' in water-colours" Borrow fairly bubbled.
"The Zincali" was translated into several languages, among others into French, and among those influenced and affected by it was Prosper Mérimée; indeed it now seems probable that without the spur of this suggestive book Mérimée would never have written "Carmen," assuredly not in its present form. Here are the facts: Mérimée visited Spain in 1830 and it was during this tour that the Condessa de Teba related to him a story of jealousy and murder, substantially that of "Carmen," in which, however, the gipsies played no part. This material offered scant inspiration for the production of a masterpiece. Mérimée, indeed, seems to have dropped the idea out of his mind entirely until Borrow's books appeared, reviving his interest in the gipsies and suggesting to him the possibility of transferring the Condessa's tale into a gipsy setting. Borrow's translation of the Gospel of Luke into Caló was issued in 1837. There is evidence that Mérimée read it. "The Zincali" came out in London in 1841; "The Bible in Spain" in 1842. "Carmen" first appeared, without the final chapter on the gipsies, in the "Revue des Deux Mondes" for October 1, 1845. The proofs of Mérimée's indebtedness to Borrow are manifold; one of the best is his own admission in his correspondence with his Inconnue: "You asked me the other day where I had obtained my acquaintance with the dialect of the gipsies. I had so many things to tell you that I forgot to reply. I got it from Mr. Borrow; his book is one of the most curious I have read." But the internal evidence is even stronger: all but two of the gipsy proverbs in "Carmen" are to be found in "The Zincali" as is many a detail in plot and description. Professor George T. Northup of the University of Toronto has traced a number of such resemblances and you may find his account of them in "Modern Philology" for July, 1915. "When he (Mérimée) set out to manufacture local colour he seldom dispensed with literary aid. He did indeed frequently dispense with direct observation," writes Professor Northup. "In his study of the Gipsies Borrow was Mérimée's important, although not his sole, literary guide; and of that a careful comparison of the two works leaves not the slightest doubt."
On one point, however, Mérimée is at variance with Borrow, and this is a most important point, so important, indeed, that the French author, in spite of (perhaps because of!) his obligation to the Englishman, points the finger of scorn at him in the added chapter (largely made up of facts to be found in "The Zincali"!) of "Carmen." Here is the passage: "M. Borrow, missionaire anglais, auteur de deux ouvrages fort intéressants sur les bohémiens d'Espagne, qu'il avait entrepris de convertir, aux frais de la Societé biblique, assure qu'il est sans exemple qu'une Gitana ait jamais eu quelque faiblesse pour un homme étranger à sa race." Borrow does not say sans exemple: "The Gitanas have in general a decided aversion to the white men; some few instances, however, to the contrary are said to have occurred." Let us continue with Mérimée: "Il me semble qu'il y a beaucoup d'exagération dans les éloges qu'il accorde à leur chasteté. D'abord, le plus grand nombre est dans le cas de la laide d'Ovide: Casta quam nemo rogavit. Quant aux jolies, elles sont comme toutes les Espagnoles, difficiles dans le choix de leurs amants. Il faut leur plaire, il faut les mériter."
This is what Borrow has to say about the matter in "The Zincali": "There is a word in the Gipsy language to which those who speak it attach ideas of peculiar reverence, far superior to that connected with the name of the Supreme Being, the creator of themselves and the universe. This word is Lácha, which with them is the corporeal chastity of the females; we say corporeal chastity, for no other do they hold in the slightest esteem; it is lawful amongst them, nay praise-worthy, to be obscene in look, gesture, and discourse, to be accessories to vice, and to stand by and laugh at the worst abominations of the Busné (Busno is the term used by the Spanish gipsies for the Spaniard or indeed any person not a gipsy), provided their Lácha ye trupos, or corporeal chastity remains unblemished. The Gipsy child, from her earliest years, is told by her strange mother, that a good Calli need only dread one thing in this world, and that is the loss of Lácha, in comparison with which that of life is of little consequence, as in such an event she will be provided for, but what provision is there for a gipsy who has lost her Lácha? 'Bear this in mind, my child,' she will say, 'and now eat this bread, and go forth and see what you can steal.'
"A Gipsy girl is generally betrothed at the age of fourteen to the youth whom her parents deem a suitable match, and who is generally a few years older than herself. Marriage is invariably preceded by betrothment.... With the Busné or Gentiles, the betrothed female is allowed the freest intercourse, going whither she will, and returning at all times and seasons. With respect to the Busné, indeed, the parents are invariably less cautious than with their own race, as they conceive it next to an impossibility that their child should lose her Lácha by any intercourse with the white blood; and true it is that experience has proved that their confidence in this respect is not altogether idle. The Gitanas have in general a decided aversion to the white men; some few instances, however, to the contrary are said to have occurred."
The gitanas, Borrow goes on to explain, are never above exciting passion in the Busné which, however, they refuse to satisfy. Their dances for the most part are lascivious and obscene. They often act as procuresses. But let no Busno presume from these facts that he may count on a more intimate acquaintanceship. Richard Ford in "Gatherings from Spain" in his description of the romalis supports Borrow in his theory: "However indecent these dances may be, yet the performers are inviolably chaste, and as far at least as ungipsy guests are concerned, may be compared to iced punch at a rout; young girls go through them before the applauding eyes of their parents and brothers, who resent to the death any attempt on their sisters' virtue."
Mérimée refers to the matter in a letter to the Inconnue: "What he (Borrow) relates of the gipsies is perfectly true, and his personal observations are entirely in accord with mine save on a single point. In his capacity of clergyman (sic), he may very well have deceived himself where I, in my capacity of Frenchman and layman, was able to make conclusive experiments." In spite of the weight of Mérimée's personal experience it may be noted that the majority of Spanish writers are in accord with Borrow, who was not a clergyman. And, as Professor Northup slyly points out, the man who taught Isopel Berners of Mumpers Dingle to conjugate the verb "to love" in Armenian may not have been so naïve an observer after all.
Whether gipsies are corporeally chaste or not[1] is, however, a matter of the slightest moment in relation to the masterpiece that Mérimée based on the theory that they are not. As Havelock Ellis so precisely puts it: "Art is in its sphere as supreme over fact as Science in its sphere is supreme over fiction. The artist may play either fast or loose with Science, and the finest artist will sometimes play loose." It may be remarked that in general Borrow was more inclined to play loose than Mérimée.
It is interesting enough to realize that "The Bible in Spain," in itself a masterpiece, was the inspiration for another masterpiece, one of the great short stories of all literature. Curiously enough still a third masterpiece emerged from the activities of the British Bible Society, Carmen, the opera. In transferring the story to the stage Messrs. Meilhac and Halévy, in searching for dramatic emphasis, have thrown overboard a good deal of the wild and wanton atmosphere, the calid passion, the brutal austerity of the original tale. Carmen, in their version, becomes a mixture of Spanish gipsy and Parisian cocotte. In certain scenes, such as that of the Seguidilla and the duet in the last act a good deal of Mérimée's feeling has been preserved but the scene of the quintet in which the other gipsies taunt Carmen with being amoureuse is probably essentially Parisian. So, too, perhaps, is the scene of the Habanera. Spaniards have long protested against the work because, as nearly as I can discover, they consider it an idealization. Spanish women as a rule make the worst Carmens, although they have often achieved notable successes in another Spanish character, Rosina in The Barber of Seville.[2] An understanding of the French opéra-comique form is essential to a fine interpretation of this gipsy heroine; even a good deal of the music is not essentially Spanish. If it were it would probably not be great because Bizet was a Frenchman and must perforce in writing French opera hear Spain with French ears.... Nevertheless I see no reason why a singer should not go to Mérimée for many hints; indeed I think she might even go farther and study Borrow's conception of the Spanish gipsy character. One line alone in Mérimée would suggest a new interpretation to an actress capable of realizing it. José is speaking: "Monsieur, quand cette fille-là riait, il n'y avait pas moyen de parler raison. Tout le monde riait avec elle." But an actress must conceive any part in terms of her own personality and this effect could be made only by a very complete charmeuse.
In the original story the bull-fighter, Lucas, scarcely appears and he is a picador not an espada as he becomes in the opera under the new name of Escamillo. Why was this name changed? I have a theory, unsupported by any evidence, that Bizet asked his librettists to furnish him with a name which would fit the music of the marvellous duet in the last act. He probably had achieved the phrase which now accompanies Ah! je t'aime, Escamillo, only to discover that it could not be married to the name Lucas. Jealousy remains the motive for the murder of Carmen although the scenes are quite differently arranged in the tale and in the lyric drama.... Micaela is new. The only suggestion of her in Mérimée's story is the following line of José's: "J'étais jeune alors; je pensais toujours au pays, et je croyais pas qu'il y eût de jolies filles sans jupes bleues et sans nattes tombant sur les épaules." Carmen's second meeting with José does not take place at Lillas Pastia's but the third does, and ever so many details such as the "chaine avec du fil de laiton," the cassia which the hussy removes from her lips to toss at José's feet, the rejected ring, etc., are incidents from Mérimée. Why, one wonders, does not some interpreter remember that the original Carmen broke a plate and from the pieces fashioned castanets to play while she danced the romalis for José?... The brutal García le Borgne, Carmen's rom, disappears completely. He is not essential to the intrigue devised by the librettists. They have also blotted out Carmen's very diverting adventures with the Englishman at Gibraltar.
Carmen was produced at the Paris Opéra-Comique March 3, 1875. The first performance was coldly received. Charles Pigot (Bizet's biographer) informs us that the prelude to the second act was repeated; the air of the Toreador and the quintet were applauded: that was all. The curtain fell on each act to complete indifference. The discouragement of the composer seems to have been deep. We do not wonder at it. Vincent d'Indy told Edmond Galabert that after the first act he and a group of young musicians met Bizet on the sidewalk near the stage entrance of the theatre and felicitated him on the life and colour in the music. Bizet responded: "Vous êtes les premiers qui me disiez ça, et je crains bien que vous ne soyez les derniers." Carmen was a failure. The reviews were bad. There were, curiously enough, many charges of immorality. Pigot assures us that Camille du Locle, the director of the theatre, who never believed in Carmen, was more or less responsible for these. To a minister who wrote in asking for a loge for the first night he replied that it would perhaps be better if he came to the general rehearsal to see if he found the piece sufficiently respectable for his wife and daughters!... Possibly these charges of immorality awakened curiosity. At any rate it is certain that after the fifth performance the receipts rose and the apathy of the audiences became less marked. The piece was given for the thirty-seventh time on June 13, just before the theatre closed for the summer. Bizet had died June 3. In the fall Carmen was revived and given thirteen representations; then not again in Paris until 1883.
At various times attempts have been made to prove that Carmen did not fail when it was first produced. The most notable of these is an article contributed to the "Ménestrel" (1903; p. 53) by Arthur Pougin entitled "La Légende de la Chute de Carmen et la Mort de Bizet" in which he quotes Mme. Galli-Marié: "L'insuccès de Carmen à la création, mais c'est une légende! Carmen n'est pas tombée au bout de quelques représentations, comme beaucoup le croient.... Nous l'avons jouée plus de quarante fois dans la saison, et quand ce pauvre Bizet est mort, le succes de son chef d'œuvre semblait definitivement assis."... Pigot scoffs at this, pointing out that the exigencies of the répertoire often make it necessary for a director to perform a work oftener than it will pay to do so. His evidence is cumulative and for the most part convincing.
According to H. Sutherland Edwards, who seems to have acquired this information from Marie Roze, in its original form the opera included two complete airs for Carmen which, in the end, the composer and his librettists decided to suppress. The gipsy was to have been represented as capable of remorse (!) and after the scene in which she foretells her death by the cards was to be left alone to give vent to her feelings in a pathetic air! The other omitted air occurred in the last act.
Mr. Edwards gives us more details: The bull-fight, according to the original design of the authors, was to be shown in the form of a tableau, occupying all the back of the stage with live chorus figures and "supers" in the front of the picture and painted figures behind them. Escamillo was to have been seen triumphing over the figure of the fallen bull, while the crowd of spectators overlooking the arena shouted vociferously the air of the Toreador. In a dark background (the back of the stage alone being illuminated) the figures of Carmen and Don José were to be seen.
Charles Pigot tells us that Micaela's song was composed originally for Griselidis (an opera for which Sardou supplied the book and which Bizet never completed). The score of Carmen would be perfect without it. The story of the Habanera is related elsewhere in this volume (p. 27), and need not be repeated here.
Carmen originally contained a good deal of spoken dialogue, which is still to be heard at the Paris Opéra-Comique. Guiraud (not Godard, as Clara Louise Kellogg has it) wrote the music for the recitatives and it is with these that the work is usually performed in foreign theatres, including the Metropolitan Opera House. In some theatres, however, a bastard version, a combination of these two forms, is given.
It is probable that Spaniards base their main objection to Carmen on the idealization of a national type offered by the libretto. It is not likely that they object to the music. At any rate they have always found Italian, French, and German music pleasant to their ears and many Spanish composers have been less Spanish than Bizet, who after all, was a Jew, and something of an oriental himself! The dances and some of the entr'acte music, then, of this opera may be considered thoroughly Spanish. But Spanish or not there is no denying that Bizet succeeded in writing one of the most delightful of operas. When I first read Nietzsche's "The Case of Wagner" I was inclined to feel that the German in his rage against Wagner had put up the silliest of opponents against him in order to make his ex-hero more ridiculous. I do not feel that way today. I humbly subscribe to all of Nietzsche's outpourings: "This music seems to me to be perfect. It approaches lightly, nimbly, and with courtesy. It is amiable, it does not produce sweat. 'What is good is easy; everything divine runs with light feet'—the first proposition of my Æsthetics. This music is wicked, subtle, and fatalistic; it remains popular at the same time,—it has the subtlety of a race, not of an individual. It is rich. It is precise.... It has borrowed from Mérimée the logic in passion, the shortest route, stern necessity. It possesses, above all, what belongs to the warm climate, the dryness of the air, its limpidezza.... This music is gay; but it has not a French or a German gaiety. Its gaiety is African; destiny hangs over it, its happiness is short, sudden, and without forgiveness." Has any one ever described Carmen so well? And there is much more. I pray you, turn to "The Case of Wagner" and read it all ... and perhaps begin to believe, as I do, that aside from Tristan Wagner himself never penned so complete a masterpiece.
Before we begin to glance at some of the ladies who have attempted to do justice to the Spanish gipsy it might be well to pause for a few seconds on two descriptions of the cigarrera type. Gautier visited the celebrated Fábrica de Tobacos in Seville, where Carmen was employed until she began to stick knives into her co-workers. Here is what he says of it:
"L'on nous conduisit aux ateliers où se roulent les cigares en feuilles. Cinq où six cents femmes sont employées à cette préparation. Quand nous mîmes le pied dans leur salle, nous fûmes assailis par un ouragan de bruits: elles parlaient, chantaient et se disputaient toutes à la fois. Je n'ai jamais entendu un vacarme pareil. Elles étaient jeunes pour la plupart, et il y en avait de fort jolies. Le négligé extrême de leur toilette permettait d'apprécier leurs charmes en toute liberté. Quelques-unes portaient résolûment à l'angle de leur bouche un bout de cigare avec l'aplomb d'un officier de hussards; d'autres, ô muse, viens à mon aide! d'autres ... chiquaient comme de vieux matelots, car on leur laisse prendre autant de tabac qu'elles en peuvent consommer sur place.... La cigarrera de Séville est un type, comme la manola de Madrid."
I also append Edmondo de Amicis's description: "The women are almost all in three immense rooms, divided into three parts, by three rows of pilasters. The first effect is stupendous. Eight hundred girls present themselves at once to your view. They are divided into groups of five or six, and are seated around work-tables, crowded together, those in the distance indistinct, and the last scarcely visible. They are all young, but few are children; in all, eight hundred dark heads of hair, and eight hundred dusky faces from every province of Andalusia, from Jaen to Cadiz, and from Granada to Seville. You hear the buzzing that you would in a square full of people. The walls, from one end of the three rooms to the other, are covered with skirts, shawls, handkerchiefs, and scarfs, and, curiously enough, the whole mass of rags, which would be sufficient to fill a hundred second-hand shops, presents two predominating colours, both continuous, one above the other, like the stripes of a flag. The black of the shawls is above, the red of the dresses below, and mixed with the latter, are white, purple, and yellow, so that you seem to see an immense fancy costume shop, or a large dancing-room, in which the ballet girls, in order to obtain more freedom of movement, have hung everything on the wall which is not absolutely necessary to cover them decently. The girls put on these dresses when they leave, but wear old things while at work, which, however, are white and red like the others. The heat being insupportable, they lighten their clothing as much as possible, so that among those five thousand there may be hardly fifty whose arms or shoulders the visitor will not have the opportunity of admiring at his leisure, without counting the exceptional cases which present themselves quite unexpectedly in passing from one room to the other, behind the doors, columns, or in distant corners. There are some very beautiful faces, and even those that are not absolutely beautiful, have something about them which attracts the eye and remains impressed upon the memory—the colouring, eyes, brows, and smile, for instance. Many, and especially the so-called gitane, are dark brown, like mulattoes, and have protruding lips; others have such large eyes that a faithful likeness of them would seem an exaggeration. The majority are small, well made, and all wear a rose, pink, or a bunch of field flowers among their braids."[3]
Mlle. Célestine Galli-Marié was the first Carmen. She is said to have been delightful, but the first interpreter of a part always has an advantage over those who follow her; she need not fear comparison. She was charged with immorality but it is not likely that she allowed herself as many gipsy liberties as some of her successors. Charles Pigot tells us that she took advantage of Mérimée's vigorous etching: "elle avait pris modèle sur ce portrait d'une ressemblance qui donne le frisson de la vie au personnage évoqué. Oeillades assassines, regards chargés de volupté qui livrent la victime pieds et poings liés, déhanchements lascifs, poings sur la hanche, rien ne manquait à la ressemblance; et ce déploiement de perversités physiques, refletant à merveille l'âme de cette bohémienne ehontée, cette crudité de tons dans le rendu du geste et de l'allure qui choquèrent bien des personnes et firent crier a l'immoralité, étaient indiqués par l'effronterie du personnage, et, j'ajouterai, nécessaires à la verité du drame, à l'explication de l'ensorcellement subit du navarrais."
Arthur Pougin says of her: "Mme. Galli-Marié should take rank with those numerous artists who, although endowed with no great voice, have for a century past rendered to this theatre services made remarkable by their talent for acting and their incontestable worth from a dramatic point of view.... Equally capable of exciting laughter or of provoking tears, endowed with an artistic temperament of great originality ... which has permitted her making out of parts confided to her distinct types ... in which she has represented personages whose nature and characteristics are essentially opposed."... She died at Vence, near Nice, September 22, 1905.
Fräulein Ehnn seems to have been the second Carmen; as Vienna was the second city to produce Bizet's opera; the date was October 23, 1875. Brussels had the honour of being the third city; the date was February 8, 1876; Mlle. Maria Dérivis enacted the rôle of the gipsy here. Thereafter the opera made the grand tour of the world, and firmly established itself in the répertoire of the meanest singing theatres. Scarcely a singer but has at one time or other sung one of the rôles in this work. Sometimes it has been Micaela (Mme. Melba, among others, has sung this rôle); sometimes Frasquita, in which Emma Trentini made an instantaneous impression in New York, more often than not Carmen herself, for contraltos and sopranos have both appeared in the part.
Adèle Isaac, a soprano, sang the part when Carmen was revived at the Opéra-Comique in 1883. She did not make a very good impression but the opera was received much more favourably than it had been in 1875. When Mme. Galli-Marié reappeared she was again deemed matchless. Then came Mme. Nardi. About 1888 Mme. Deschamps-Jehin sang the rôle. Mme. Tarquini d'Or succeeded her. In December, 1892, Mme. Calvé disclosed her characterization. It has been the custom in America to signalize a vast distinction between her early and late performances of the rôle; it has been said that she became self-conscious and wayward. Paris always found her so, but it must be remembered that tradition must be followed in the French theatre. Charles Darcourt's criticism in "Le Figaro" the next morning is enough to give a Parisian impression: He reproached her "d'être allée trop loin dans ses gestes et ses attitudes, d'avoir été trop peu comme il faut, d'être sorti des limites du bon goût et surtout du bon ton."... Mlle. Charlotte Wyns sang Carmen in 1894. Mme. Nina Pack, Mme. de Nuovina and Mme. Marie Brema followed her. In 1898 came Georgette Leblanc, who subsequently became the wife of Maurice Maeterlinck. Mlle. Leblanc's interpretation was a new one and she inspired one critic (Fierens-Gevaert) to put on paper the following ecstatic lines about her appearance in the second act:
"Mlle. Leblanc is clothed in a long robe of plaited tulle, ornamented with spangles. Her body, finely proportioned, is revealed by this indiscreet drapery. Her nobly modelled shoulders and arms are bare. Her hair is confined by three circles of gold, arranged in Grecian fashion. Alma, gipsy, daughter of the East, princess of the harem, Byzantine empress or Moorish dancer? All this is suggested by this fantastic and seductive costume. But a more ideal image pursues us. The singer is constantly urged by feminine visions of our ultra-modern poets. She finds absolute beauty in the exquisite body of a woman animated by a Florentine robe. And it is through this imaginary figure that she composes her other incarnations; and in a tavern where gipsy women meet soldiers, she evokes the apparition of a woman of Mantegna or Botticelli, degraded, vile, who gives the idea of a shameless creature that has not lost entirely the gracefulness of her original rank. She is never weary of cheapening her original model. She is sensual, impudent, voluptuous, gross, but in her white diction, in her blithe walk, you divine her desire of evoking something else.... Carmen is, according to Mlle. Leblanc, a hybrid, monstrous creature. You look upon her with eager curiosity and infinite sadness.... Mlle. Leblanc makes light of her voice. She maltreats it, threshes it, subjects it to inhuman inflections.... Her singing is not musical, her interpretation lacks the naïveté necessary to true dramatic power. Nevertheless, she is one of the most emotional interpreters of our period. Her limited abilities, hidden by a thousand details in accentuation, remind one of the weak and ornate poetry of artistic degeneration.... Thanks to her, Antioch and Alexandria, corrupt and adorable cities, live again, for an hour."
Perhaps Philip Hale's description of Carmen owes something to this picture of Mlle. Leblanc. At any rate it is striking enough to reproduce:
"Carmen lived years before she was known to Mérimée. She dies many deaths and many are her resurrections. When the world was young, they say her name was Lilith, and the serpent for her sake hated Adam. She perished that wild night when the heavens rained fire upon the cities of the plain. Samson knew her when she dwelt in the valley of Sorek. The mound builders saw her and fell at her feet. She disquieted the blameless men of Ethiopia. Years after she was the friend of Theodora. In the fifteenth century she was noticed in Sabbatic revels led by the four-horned goat. She was in Paris at the end of the last century and she wore powder and patches at the dinner given by the Marquis de Sade. In Spain she smoked cigarettes and wrecked the life of Don José."
Georgette Leblanc's successors were Mme. Delna, Zélie de Lussan, Marié de l'Isle (who sang Mercedes before she sang Carmen), Cécile Thévenet, Jenny Passama, Claire Friché, Marguerite Sylva, Mme. Lafargue, Mlle. Vix, Mlle. Brohly, Mlle. Charbonnel, Sigrid Arnoldson, Mlle. Mérentié, and Lucienne Bréval, whom Zuloaga painted twice in the part. One of these painting hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The other belongs to Mme. Bréval. I have not seen Mme. Bréval in Carmen but I have seen her in other operas and I think I am safe in saying that Zuloaga's conception of her is more gipsy-like than her performance.... One of the latest of the Paris Carmens has been Mary Garden.