"Yes, I have killed her, I - my adored Carmen!"

I first learnt of Bizet's 'Carmen' when I was about 7. At the time I didn't realise the entire breadth of the Opera. The Toreador March was simply the first tune that I learnt to play from memory on the piano. I would sit for hours playing it over and over again, never tiring of playfulness of the melody. Sometimes I would play it faster and faster and faster until my fingers couldn't possibly go any faster. Sometimes I would play it slowly, sombrely as a death march, sometimes staccato, sometimes adagio. I wanted to squeeze every single possibility from it. It didn't matter as long as I was playing that tune. When we went to visit relatives my mum would like to show off her children who could play the piano, again and again they would hear the same glorious melody until I was banned from playing it. My brother particularly despaired, even now he cannot bear to hear it and when I mention it he glowers at me.

As I grew up I listened more to the entirety of the Opera and I loved it even more. Each time I listen to it I feel paralyzed. I can never have it simply 'on in the background,' when Carmen is playing it is -there- and everything else falls into insignificance. When I had the pleasure of seeing Carmen within the beautiful surroundings of the National Opera House in Prague I was trembling with excitement. Even the beautiful murals of the Opera House couldn't distract me from the music.

Carmen breaths passion and life. Carmen herself is that burst of life that can never be pinned down. She subverts and destroys order, flitting from one person to the next and from the moment Don Jose falls in love with her he is doomed. It is not surprising though that Don Jose chooses her instead of Micaela; who would not choose passion over the ordinary? It constitutes the end, his passion for Carmen will end in both their deaths. But in choosing death he has chosen life, I believe that given the choice and knowing of the consequences Don Jose would still rush blindly into Carmen's arms. A brief burst of the absolute intensity of life coupled with a tragic death; for he had to kill her, how could he live with the thought of her in Escamillo's arms. And how could he live knowing that she was dead? Despite the tragic ending Carmen remains not an Opera about death but an absolute affirmation of life.

A note on Escamillo. I absolutely love him, not just from my childhood piano playing but an Escamillo swaggering about the stage oozing sleaze and sex is a beautiful sight. I have two versions of Carmen, in one Escamillo is played slowly, grandiloquently so I rarely listen to that version. In the other his voice is seduction and sleaze, one need not know the story to tell that this is ladies man, it comes across lasciviously in his voice.

On June 19th I will be in my element. I'm going to see Carmen at the Coliseum in London. I imagine that the expense will be worth it. Pins and needles and rushes of energy. What is money when one can be overwhelmed by such an experience that it will linger for long after the event? For it always lingers, for days after seeing Carmen the experience keeps rushing back. I will never get sick of hearing or seeing Carmen, I often listen to it before I start writing something philosophical; afterwards I feel exhilarated, liberated and consumed with fire.

Or, in the words of someone who always has the eloquence to give voice to experience;

And once more: I become a better human being when this Bizet speaks to me. Also a better musician, a better listener. Is it even possible to listen better?- I actually bury my ears under this music to hear its causes. It seems to me I experience its genesis-I tremble before dangers that accompany some risk, I am delighted by strokes of good fortune of which Bizet is innocent.- And how odd! deep down I don't think of it, or don't know how much I think about it. For entirely different thoughts are meanwhile running through my head ... Has it been noticed that music liberates the spirit? gives wings to thought? that one becomes more of a philosopher the more one becomes a musician?- The gray sky of abstraction rent as if by lightning; the light strong enough for the filigree of things; the great problems near enough to grasp; the world surveyed as from a mountain.- I have just defined the pathos of philosophy.- And unexpectedly answers drop into my lap, a little hail of ice and wisdom, of solved problems ... Where am I?- Bizet makes me fertile. Whatever is good makes me fertile. I have no other gratitude, nor do I have any other proof for what is good. - (Nietzsche - 'The Case of Wagner')

|