# Bizet CARMEN La Habanera theme



## carolineopera (Jul 2, 2013)

SEE ATTACHED: La Habanera Can someone help me identify where these notes may have come from? It says La Habanera. They are copied from somewhere but the notes don't seem right to me and I really need to find out the original source....where they might have been copied from. Perhaps it's a different instrument or a different version? It says La Habanera on the top yet I went through lots of google images of the theme and can't find any with these notes!!! Help!


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Bizet stole that tune from the song El Arreglito by Spanish composer Sebastian Iradier. I hope this helps.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Well the Habanera was not even the original intention of Bizet . In the first version of the opera, a standard aria was there in its place. This was the original "L'amour est enfant de bohème":






However, Bizet was not very happy about the result and, even worse, neither was Célestine Galli-Marié. Searching for an alternative, Bizet heard a haunting melody contained in a collection of songs published in France under the title of "Fleurs d'Espagne". Considering it was a kind of folklore song, Bizet proceed to use it as the basis for the Habanera. Basically music coming from Cuba. Originally, a dance music style that was created around the beginning of the 19th century. In the 1860s, a Spanish composer, Sebastián Iradier, was visiting Cuba when he fell in love with that music, and wrote several "habanera" songs.

One of them was soon very, very famous in Spain (and Cuba, too) as well as Mexico, and from there it gained a big popularity across the world. It's, of course, 'La Paloma". But another one, more obscure at first, was also going to be known everywhere, but in this case thanks to Georges Bizet: "El Arreglito".

And was the basis for the new "L'amour est enfant de bohème", that was going to please the composer, and the star singer. Incidentally, also enhanced the drama, adding what was then an exotic element to Carmen, an alien presence to the patrons of the Opéra-Comique. Bizet also enhanced the hypnotic aspect of all habaneras with a splendid choice of instruments for the orchestration. Using almost the same melodic line, without any modulation, using a drone on D and three chords. Simplicity itself.

This was indeed something of a shock for the Parisian audiences in the 1870s, but has remained equally effective since then. A song, turned by the genius of Bizet into the basis of Carmen's characterization.


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