Richard Langham Smith Keynotes on Bizet's "Carmen"

Richard Langham Smith, Open University, England

Keynote address, Friday, 16 November, 9:30 a.m., McKay Auditorium 

Bizet's "Carmen": Towards a performance Urtext

Asked to produce an edition of "Carmen" corresponding to the 'original' Opéra-Comique production in 1875, I found myself faced with many research questions.

On reflection the first question which had to be probed was 'What was an opéra-comique, produced at the Opéra-Comique, in the latter part of the nineteenth century? This led to interrogation of the traditions and statutes of the Opéra-Comique; the ways in which operas were recorded and disseminated, and the nature of the 'mise-en-scène'.

My conclusions were to realise the dynamic rather than static nature of the process; the role of collaboration between composer, librettists and régisseurs; and the differences between 20th century and 19th concepts of staging and production.

Thus the first part of my paper is about the nature (or ontology) of an opéra-comique at THE Opéra-Comique: something which too few editors have considered. Surely an editor needs to know what he/she is editing?

The paper then goes on to propose a way in which an opéra-comique can be presented in the 21st century, comparing this compression into one score to the process of polytextuality which was
the essence of the production-process of the musical, literary and theatrical texts in Bizet's time.

Richard Langham Smith is currently Arnold Kettle Distinguished Scholar in Music at the Open University (UK); Visiting Lecturer at the University of Cambridge; and an Honorary Fellow in Modern Languages at the University of Exeter.