Operas Every Child Should Know. Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
ACT I
Once upon a time there was a pretty girl named Michaela, and she was as good as she was beautiful. She loved a corporal in the Spanish army whose name was Don José. Now the corporal was a fairly good chap, but he had been born thoughtless, and as a matter of fact he had lived away from home for so long that he had half-forgotten his old mother who lived a lonely life with Michaela.
One day, about noontime, the guard, waiting to be relieved by their comrades, were on duty near the guard-house, which was situated in a public square of Seville. As the soldiers sat about, or walked with muskets over shoulders, their service was not especially wearisome, because people were continually passing through the square, and besides there was a cigarette factory on the other side of the square, and when the factory hands tumbled out, about noon, there was plenty of carousing and gaiety for an hour. Here in the square were little donkeys with tinkling bells upon them, and donkeys carrying packs upon their backs, and gentlemen in black velvet cloaks which were thrown artistically over one shoulder, and with plumes on their hats. Then, too, there were ragged folks who looked rather well, nevertheless, since their rags were Spanish rags, and made a fine show of bright colours.
Just as Morales, the officer of the guard, was finding the hot morning rather slow, and wishing the factory bell would ring, and his brother officer march his men in to relieve him, Michaela appeared. She had come into the city from the home of José's mother, which was somewhere near, in the hills. His old mother had become so lonely and worried, not having heard from José for so long, that at last the girl had undertaken to come down into the city, bearing a note from his mother, and to seek him out at his barracks. She had inquired her way till she found the square where the guard was quartered, and now, when she entered it, Morales was the first to see her.
"That is a pretty girl," Morales decided as he watched her. "Seems to be looking for some one—little strange in this part of the town, probably. Can I do anything for you?" he called to her, as she approached.
"I am looking for Don José, a soldier, if you know him——"
"Perfectly. He is corporal of the guard which is presently to relieve us. If you wait here, you are certain to see him." Michaela thanked him quietly, and went away. The soldiers were strange to her, and she preferred to wait in another part of the square rather than where they were idling. She had no sooner disappeared than the music of the relief guard was heard in the distance. It was the soldiers' chorus: a regular fife and drum affair. It came nearer, nearer, nearer, till it arrived in full blast, fresh as a pippin, the herald of all that was going to happen through four acts of opera. There was to be fighting and smugglers: factory-girls in a row, and Carmen everywhere and anywhere, all of the time.
With the new guard comes first the bugler and a fifer with a lot of little ragged urchins tagging along behind; then comes Zuniga strutting in, very much pleased with himself, and after him Don José, the corporal, whom Michaela has come to town to see. The street boys sing while the new guard lines up in front of the old one, and every one takes up the song. It is the business of every one in opera to sing about everything at any time. Thus the guard describes itself in song:
| On we tramp, alert and steady, Like young soldiers, every one! Head up, and footfall steady, Left, right! we're marching on! See how straight our shoulders are— Every breast is swelled with pride, Our arms all regular— Hanging down on either side. |
There is not much poetry in this, but there is lots of vim, and the new guard, as bright as a new tin whistle, has formed and the old guard marched off during the singing. Meantime, while things have been settling down, Morales has had a word with Don José.
"A pretty girl is somewhere near here, looking for you, José. She wore a blue gown and her hair is in a braid down her back; she's——"
"I know her; it is Michaela," José declares: and, with the sudden knowledge that she is so near, and that she comes directly from his old mother, he feels a longing for home, and realizes that he has been none too thoughtful or kind toward those who love him. As everybody finds himself in place, Zuniga points across to the cigarette factory.
"Did you ever notice that there are often some tremendously pretty girls over there?" he asks of José.
"Huh?" José answers, abstractedly. Zuniga laughs.
"You are thinking of the pretty girl Morales has just told you of," he says. "The girl with the blue petticoat and the braid down her back!"
"Well, why not? I love her," José answers shortly. He hunches his musket a little higher and wheels about. He doesn't specially care to talk of Michaela or his mother, with these young scamps who are as thoughtless as himself: he has preserved so much of self-respect; but before he can answer again the factory bell rings. Dinner time! José stands looking across, as every one else does, while the factory crowd begins to tumble out, helter-skelter. All come singing, and the girls smoking cigarettes, a good many of them being gipsies, like Carmen. They are dressed in all sorts of clothes from dirty silk petticoats, up to self-respecting rags. Carmen is somewhere in the midst of the hullabaloo, and everybody is shouting for her.
Carmen leads in everything. She leads in good and she leads in bad. She makes the best and the worst cigarettes, she is the quickest and she is the slowest, as the mood moves her; and now, when she flashes on to the stage in red and yellow fringes and bedraggled finery, cigarette in mouth and bangles tinkling, opera has given to the stage the supreme puzzle of humanity: the woman who does always what she pleases, and who pleases never to do the thing expected of her!
The first man she sees when she comes from the factory is José. The first thing that she pleases to do is to make José love her. It will be good fun for the noon hour. She has her friends with her, Frasquita and Mercedes, and all are in the mood for a frolic. They sing:
[Listen]
| Love is like any wood-bird wild, That none can ever hope to tame; And in vain is all wooing mild If he refuse your heart to claim. Naught avails, neither threat nor prayer, One speaks me fair—the other sighs, 'Tis the other that I prefer, Tho' mute, his heart to mine replies. |
While Carmen sings, her eyes do not leave Don José, and he is watching her in spite of himself. The racket continues till the factory bell rings to call the crowd back to work. Carmen goes reluctantly, and as she goes, she throws a flower at José.
| This little flower gave me a start Like a ball aimed fair at my heart! |
he says, half smiling, half seriously, as he picks it up. While he stands thus, looking toward the factory, holding the flower, thinking of Carmen, Michaela comes back into the square. They espy each other, and a sudden warmth and tenderness come upon José: after all, he loves her dearly—and there is his old mother! His better self responds: José, in imagination, sees the little house in the hills where he lived as a boy before he went soldiering. He recalls vividly for the first time in months, those who are faithful to him, and for a moment he loves them as they love him. They speak together. Michaela gives him the note from his mother. There is money in it: she has thought he might be in debt, or in other trouble and need it. José is surprised by the tears in his own eyes—it is a far cry from gay Seville to the little house among the hills!
"Go back to mother, Michaela, tell her I am going to get leave as soon as I can and am coming back to her and you. I am going to play fair. There's not much in life, otherwise. Go home and tell her I am coming, and I mean to make you both as happy as once I meant to."
His sudden tenderness enraptures the young girl, and kissing him she sets out to leave Seville with a glad heart. José, left alone, on guard, his life and thought interrupted by this incident of home and faithfulness, leans thoughtfully