By the thirty-fifth performance, after it was published that Bizet had been found dead of a broken heart at his country estate very close to the time of the soprano’s fainting, Paris rushed to see the opera, and the remaining performances sold out. It closed after the forty-eighth performance to go to Vienna, where the director sought to shock audiences further by adding real horses and a bullfighter’s parade. There, it triumphed.
For those of us students seeking a lesson in telling the story of his career, Bizet’s tale had finally concluded. The lessons were that sometimes the composer died in the third act and not the soprano in the fifth. You could devote yourself relentlessly to art and there would be no great reward; you could go to your death for all of your talent thinking you had failed at your great work. There was no bargain to be made with Fame, who was, perhaps, the most fickle god of all or, perhaps, the bargain was this—Fame had taken his life as its price for conferring fame on the opera. In this way, while Bizet did not teach, he did teach.
And so there was one opera, perhaps, in the history of music that I never wanted to sing, and that was Carmen. And yet I saw over the years the success of the imperial productions, the theaters across Europe eager to perform it, and the sopranos lined up to sing the “Indochinese” music as if waiting in a queue for eggs and milk after the Siege. I knew one day it would be offered to me, and I would have to choose.
This was that day.
I sat in bed and read the music pages and came quickly to the Habanera. I remembered the cold-eyed girls of the chorus exhaling their smoke that first night toward the virgins in the boxes and giggled in my bed.
This chance was too delicious to refuse—it was even its own kind of revenge. The Opéra-Comique had decided to return Carmen to Paris for the first time since the debut and had done, as reported in the papers, a Carmen with no cigarettes, ballerinas made to stand still, and a young Don José who dropped his knife when he went to kill his murderer-seductress. She stood waiting for him to stab her. Amid the screams from the audience that it was a desecration, and the screams of laughter, a new production was decided on. The cigarette girls’ cigarettes would be lit again, the horses brought back onstage, the bawdy jokes told.
And, as the letter indicated, if she would consent, La Générale for the title role.
The letter requested that I be borrowed from my contract at the Garnier for the performances, scheduled during my typical break in between performing Gounod’s Faust there and my departure for Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera in Milan.
The break I took between productions was a necessary one, but I’d not previously been invited to perform with this company, which was composed, perhaps more than most, of former classmates of mine from the Conservatoire. They, like the rest, no doubt all hoped the cursed soprano would increase sales, the house filled with audiences eager for a daredevil act—especially from Carmen.
I decided to let the rumor be. There was nothing I could do to disprove it to the public now, after all, except to live—and to take their dare and perform Carmen.
In the meantime, I hoped the news that I was performing with the tenor again would show the Comtesse I intended to continue my bargain and was preferable to some false attempt on my part to renew our affair. The illusion of a rapprochement was all that I needed here.
I signed the contracts that morning and returned them with a note indicating my great pleasure in accepting this honor and then made arrangements with Euphrosyne that after I performed her Queen of the Night aria the tenor would be Faust to my Marguerite in two of the songs from Faust, at the end of which we would announce our news. I reflected on how neatly it had all been resolved as I dressed the night of Euphrosyne’s bal in an apartment she’d allowed me to use as a dressing room.
All’s well that ends well, then, she even said to me over my shoulder as Lucy and Doro put me into my costume, and then she asked me to meet her by the stairs.
I was sure it wasn’t him, Euphrosyne said. It’s really him?
She was speaking of the tenor, whom she remembered quite differently. She had not seen him in years, and his new girth hid him well.
We stood at her stairs, each of us with a glass of champagne, as around us the guests made their way to the buffet.
I like you as a married lady, I said.
I don’t, she said, petulant, and raised her jade cigarette holder. She lit it with her left eye closed, as if she were shooting a rifle, and drew on it hard. The tip burned brightly and then faded. I’m very serious!
Above, I heard the announcement of the names of the arrivals ringing out in sturdy voices. I did not ask after her husband then. She looked at me with mock evil, understanding as much, and then, briefly, an expression of hurt crossed her face as she looked away, banished as she exhaled.
I’m sure I preferred it when I was his fantasy, she said. I didn’t take all this trouble just to be ignored. Now, let me return the guest of honor to her rightful place. She tried to put her arm through mine and gestured up, but our skirts were too enormous to allow us to walk arm in arm, and so we laughed as she let go.
She turned to me just at that second and said, Never marry.