It was on this day in 1919 that the immense Winnipeg General Strike commenced. The strike was called for by a coalition of more than 70 labor unions in and around Winnipeg after an overwhelming vote in favor: about 96% of unions’ membership supported the call. By noon on 15 May 1919, the city of Winnipeg had come to a near standstill as more than 35,000 workers – almost half of the city’s workforce – walked off their jobs. The strike was a protracted one, effectively lasting until 21 June when a detail of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police charged a crowd of strikers resulting in at least one death and scores of serious injuries. (This police force would be merged into the Royal Canadian Mounted Police the following year, so many accounts anachronistically refer to a charge by the RCMP; “Mounties” they were, but not yet RCMP.) With an abrupt, violent, and deadly conclusion, the strike was not considered a success. By 25 June, the strike was formally called off.

The Province of Manitoba in general, and the city of Winnipeg in particular, seem to be Canada’s trouble spot. In the later 19th Century, Manitoba saw the rise of Louis Riel as leader of the Metis, an indigenous people of Canada. Little more than a year after Canada gained autonomy within the British Empire in 1867, Riel and his Metis agitated for the organization of their lands along the Red River (of the North) into an autonomous state. Riel and others formed a provisional government, unilaterally exercising governmental powers which Canada had not authorized. The resulting conflict, called the Red River Rebellion, lasted more than a year. The Metis were successful in negotiating the with Ottawa for the formation of Manitoba, but Ottawa, to assert control, dispatched a military force under Sir Garnet Wolseley (later famous for his expedition to relieve Gordon at Khartoum.) Ottawa thus asserted its sovereignty. Riel and those who had participated in the provisional government were exiled.

Manitoba saw further unrest and conflict in 1885 in the Northwest Rebellion. Canada had not made good on all of the previous promises to the Metis; the Metis in turn resorted to armed rebellion, once more under the leadership of Louis Riel. Riel’s rebellion was unsuccessful, and on 15 May 1885, Riel surrendered to Canadian authorities. This time Riel did not escape with his life. Riel was executed in July of that year. So Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1919 was a place in which many residents recalled the rebellious past.

Add to this the fact that 1919 was a a year fraught with stresses and strains across North America and across the globe. Societies throughout the world were reeling from the terrible cost of World War I, and a burst of social reform and experimentation took effect in nation after nation. Kings and Emperors were formally deposed, republics were established. Communist parties were formally organized in all major Western nations, including the United States and Canada. Labor looked to the successful Bolshevik revolution in Russia as a harbinger of a better day for Labor everywhere.

It was in 1919 that the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted, banning the sale of manufacture of alcohol, and ushering its own era of social upheaval. In June, the 19th Amendment enabling universal female suffrage in the U.S. was introduced, sparking enormous debate on the traditional role of women in society. And the unease and unrest were manifest in more physical ways as well. In the Spring of 1919 “anarchists” exploded bombs in several cities of the northeastern United States. Labor riots cropped up throughout the year as the economic uncertainties created by the war increased the disagreements between labor and capital. Police strikes were called in London, Liverpool, and in Boston. Race riots broke out as returning soldiers and others reacted to the great internal migrations that had taken place within the U.S. to supply labor for war industries. Hundreds of thousands of African Americans relocated from the Deep South to the opportunities provided by manufacturing jobs in the North as more and more soldiers had been sent overseas. Once the war was over, there was a nostalgic desire for things to return to “normalcy,” and tempers erupted into violence time and again. Reading the commentaries and observations of the day, one finds that many writers felt that the world had changed in every detail, and not for the better.

The wider world was no more peaceful, despite the “end” of “the war to end all wars.” The eastern theater of the First World War saw continued conflict; war broke out between Poland and the USSR, and between competing factions with in the new USSR. The Baltic states and Finland experienced armed internal conflicts between factions vying to fill the power vacuum left after the collapse of the Russian empire. In Turkey, Mustafa Kemel ignited the Turkish War of “Independence,” and Greek forces landed along Turkey’s Ionian coast to protect the interest of the Greek residents there. In Amritsar, India, a crowd of peaceful demonstrators was dispersed by the British Colonial Army using rifle fire; more than 1,100 people were wounded and nearly 400 killed. (The troops were recorded to have fired a total of 1,600 rounds.) And, yes, there were even troubles in Iraq, between Kurd and Arab, between Sunni and Shi’ite.

While it is true that virtually every year has wars, conflicts, social change, and riots, 1919 was unusually fraught with upheavals. It was against this background that the Winnipeg Strike played out. The western Allies had concluded the major conflicts of World War I in November of 1918. Millions of troops were demobilized in rapid order, returning to societies which had been forever changed by the experience of the Great War, but which had no mechanisms in place to assist this huge corps of veterans with reassimilating into civilian life. Tens of thousands of of Canadian troops came home to find very few job opportunities available and the openings they found were typically very low-paying positions. this contrasted unfavorably with the great profits that Canada’s industrialists had reaped from war contracts. Fostering resentment among people just returned from war seems a nearly certain way to provoke riot and rebellion, or, at the very least, strikes. Thus it was that the Winnipeg General Strike was called, and the city came to a halt 15 May 1919.

The strikers found great sympathy among the common workers, but great hostility in the press and media of the day. Villified as “Anarchists” and “Bolsheviks” by the major papers throughout North America and England, the strikers were in fact, mainly neither. These were in the great majority, ordinary, moderate folks seeking a fair shake, not subversives seeking to topple the world order. But after several weeks without any concessions from the businessmen nor from the politicians, and with the violent events of 21 June, the Strike Committee formally called an end on 25 June. There was a sense of futility and failure. Yet some important things were accomplished in the longer run.

In the wake of the strike, a Royal commission’s investigatory report concluded that “if Capital does not provide enough to assure Labour a contented existence … then the Government might find it necessary to step in and let the state do these things at the expense of Capital.” In the following years, the Parliament of Canada would enact legislation to further the interest of labor and to define the obligations of business , and Canada’s acts would influence similar legislation in the United States. Though there have been other major strikes in Canada since 1919, none have had the scope, the scale, nor the impact of the Winnipeg General Strike.

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Jamie Rawson
Flower Mound, Texas

— John D. Rockefeller

It was on this day in 1915 that one of the fastest, most luxurious, and most popular ocean liners of its day was torpedoed without warning and sank in less than 18 minutes, taking 1,195 people to their deaths. The sinking of the unarmed passenger liner Lusitania by a German U-boat ultimately propelled the United States of America into the carnage and butchery of World War I, “the war to end all wars.”

Lusitania, a Cunard liner, was launched in 1906 and began regular transatlantic service in 1907. She was the finest ship of her age when launched. Her second class accommodations were more luxurious than first class on her rivals and sister ships. (Today we would find things rather spartan: private bathrooms were only for the priciest cabins!) Lusitania set the transatlantic speed record in November 1907: 4 days, 20 hours, thereby becoming the first ship to cross the Atlantic Ocean in under five days. She and her sister ship, Mauretania, (launched 1907) were known as “The Atlantic Greyhounds.” They ensured that the legendary “Blue Riband” (not a real trophy, but the popular designation of the transatlantic speed record) would remain in Cunard’s hands (and out of the Germans’) for the next 22 years!

Lusitania became the preferred ship for the transatlantic set, and remained so even during those perilous days as the first World War was unfolding. Lusitania was ready to depart from New York on 1 May 1915 even as a widely published advertisement from the German Embassy warned Americans that British ships were fair game for German U-boats.

Lusitania crossed the open ocean without incident, her fabled speed being her best armor. Unaccountably, however, despite being notified that U-boats had sunk three British ships south of Ireland immediately prior to the time that Lusitania was expected, Captain William Turner ordered the vessel to reduce speed. Apparently he was more concerned about patchy fog on the route than about German U-boats.

Kapitanleuntnant Walter Schweiger of U-20 could not believe his good luck! The most tempting target a U-boat captain had thus far seen was directly in his sights!

One torpedo was all that was required to kill the great liner. Holed amidship, the damage was compounded by a secondary explosion which some believe was exacerbated by a secret cargo of munitions which was detonated by the initial blast, but which submarine archeologist Robert Ballard believes to have been Lusitania’s boilers. Lusitania sank in an almost unimaginably short time. Most of Lusitania’s 1,959 passengers had no opportunity to save themselves. The loss of life was staggering, especially considering that the great ship was within easy sight of land.

The dastardly attack provoked outrage around the world. The act was condemned even in German newspapers, and Germany’s allies Austria-Hungary and The Ottoman Empire both protested to the Kaiser’s government. Imperial Germany immediately began a propoganda campaign justifying the sinking, making note of Germany’s many warnings about the dangers to vessels of combatant nations, and claiming that Lusitania was carrying contraband arms cargo. This claim was immediately refuted by the Port Authority of New York which had inspected the ship’s cargo as required by law and had found only crates of small arms cartridges which were permitted. Cunard lines and the British Admiralty both denied that Lusitania had war materiel aboard, but the matter is still hotly debated. It should be noted that none of the physical investigations of the wreck and its debris field have ever found any evidence of contraband cargo.

In the United Kingdom, the sinking was predictably met with outrage and the tragedy was used as an occasion to whip up patriotic fervor. Posters were printed demanding justice for the sinking, and to inspire recruiting efforts and bonds sales. But the most significant reaction was in The United States.

The U.S. government protested to the Kaiser’s government and demanded that, in addition to paying reparation for the 123 Americans killed in the attack, that Germany abandon its policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. Unwilling to draw the United States into the European conflict on the side of the English and the French, Imperial Germany declared an end to unrestricted U-boat attacks. The termination of such attacks was more in name than in fact: in the Fall of 1915, a German U-boat sank an Italian liner without warning, killing 23 Americans. The tide of public opinion in America turned decisively against the Germans. When the Germans declared the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare in early 1917, America’s entry into the war became inevitable. On April 6, 1917, just shy of two years after Lusitania was lost, America declared war on the German Empire.

Thus did Kapitanleuntnant Walter Schweiger’s moment of irresistable opportunity turn into one of the linch-pins of 20th century history: had he not torpedoed Lusitania, it is possible America might have remained neutral. Had America not entered the war, Germany might not have been so decisively defeated. Had Germany’s defeat and humiliation not been so complete, Apolph Hitler might not have found so fertile a ground for his noxious schemes to reclaim German glory. The course of history just might boil down to one man, one moment of decision.

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Jamie Rawson
Flower Mound, Texas

Der Krieg ist nichts als eine Fortsetzung der politischen
Verkehrs mit Einmischung anderer Mittel.

— Karl von Clausewitz

It was on this day in 1937 that the largest airship that the world has ever seen, Germany’s Hindenburg, was destroyed in an apocalyptic ball of flame at Lakehurst, New Jersey. The calamitous event was one of the first disasters that was captured live on radio, and the recording of the event was subsequently broadcast across the United States. Chicago radio station WLS had their reporter Herb Morrison at the scene to cover the landing of the great zeppelin. His vivid description of the tragedy, with his immortal exclamation, “Oh! The Humanity!!!” remains one of the defining moments of broadcast journalism.

As the immense aircraft was readying to land at Lakehurst, a fire burst forth from the aft section. within seconds, the entire vessel was consumed and the twisted skeleton crashed to earth. Of the 97 people aboard the ship, 35 died in the flames, and nearly all of the survivors were severely injured. Investigations from that time concluded that a fire of unknown origin had ignited the airship’s highly flammable hydrogen gas. Hitler’s government took advantage of the occasion to condemn the United States’ policy forbidding the export of the safe gas helium, (the U.S. had all the world’s reserves of helium) but never so much as hinted that the tragedy might have been the result of saboteurs or provocateurs within the U.S.

Many theories have been offered about the Hindenburg tragedy. One “mainstream” explanation is that atmospheric electrical charges from the day’s thunderstorms used the great vessel as a ground (it was already connected to its mooring lines when the tragedy struck) and ignited the extremely flammable hydrogen. Another theory is that the ship was the victim of anti‐Nazi saboteurs who wished to destroy the mighty symbol of German prowess. One recently offered explanation blames the ship’s highly flammable cloth skin ‐‐ and not the hydrogen gas ‐‐ for the fire, noting that the flames spread in a conventional pattern, atypical of gaseous fires.

In the early 1960’s, a small, far‐right magazine in West Germany published an article in which it was declared that Hindenburg had been destroyed by British agents in revenge for the torpedoing of Lusitania 22 years earlier. The article offered not so much as one shred of evidence to support its claims, yet the theory continues to surface. The 1975 movie “Hindenburg” exploited the sabotage theory in its plot. There is still no completely satisfactory “official” explanation.

The flaming ruin of Hindenburg effectively ended the era of transatlantic dirigibles. By 1945, the world’s remaining lighter‐than‐air vessels were consigned to novelty status. For many years, the only dirigible that most Americans were aware of was “The Goodyear Blimp” which is actually any one of a fleet of Goodyear blimps. In the past decade or so, blimps have become something of a status symbol, so today we have blimps sponsored by film makers and other concerns far, far removed from lighter‐than‐air flight.

On this date in 1862, Mexican forces led by Goliad, Texas‐born General Ignacio Zaragoza and General Porfirio Diaz defeated an invading French army at Puebla on the road to Mexico City. The French forces outnumbered the Mexican troops at least 2 to 1, and they had much more modern armaments such as rifled muskets. Some of the Mexican troops carried muskets that had seen service with British troops in the Battle of Waterloo 47 years earlier (the selling off of outdated weapons to developing nations being an old and respected tradition!) It is a wonderful irony that those same “Brown Bess” muskets beat the French a second time! Despite the unequal odds, the ferocity and audacity of the Mexican troops defeated the French nevertheless.

This patriotic victory stalled the French invasion for more than a year, and though the French ultimately remained in Mexico until 1867, this battlefield success proved that Mexico could face the military might of Europe without relying on the support of the United States and its Monroe doctrine (the U.S. was rather preoccupied with a bit of an internal struggle at the time.)

The French had invaded Mexico in April of 1861 along with British and Spanish troops under the pretext of collecting Mexico’s outstanding loans owed to those countries. The year before, after three years of bitter civil strife between the conservative party led by Felix Zuloaga and the liberal party led by Benito Juarez, Juarez had formed a government and had, of necessity, suspended payment on all foreign debt. (A common tactic to this day.)

After Juarez’ government negotiated terms for extended repayment with both Britain and Spain, France’s Napoleon III (Louis Napoleon, a nephew of the Napoleon) declared that France was unsatisfied and would remain in Mexico until full repayment was completed. Britain and Spain withdrew their troops, but Napoleon III, confident that he could succeed while the United States was rent by Civil War, decided to install his own puppet government in Mexico.

The conservative faction was impressed with Louis Napoleon’s plan to place a European monarch at the head of Mexico, and backed the French. The liberal republicans who supported Juarez vowed resistance. As the powerful French force advanced from Veracruz to Mexico City, they won city after city and seemed to be unstoppable. But at Puebla the loyal Mexican forces rallied and made what was almost certainly a last‐ditch, suicidal stand. Yet they prevailed and turned back the French advance.

Since “Cinco de Mayo,” is a Mexican holiday, some may wonder why we in the U.S. would have any interest in it. Well – as is true for so much of history – there is an important but often overlooked connection between the Battle of Puebla, the Mexican Victory/French defeat, and the very fate of the United States of America.

My friend George Krieger was good enough to point out this connection to me some years ago, and I feel it is worth sharing, because it turns out the United States of America was a very real beneficiary of the Mexican victory.

In May of 1862 The United States of America had been engaged in a fierce Civil War for just over a year. This meant that the U.S. could not intervene against the French in Mexico as I mentioned earlier. But it is also worth noting that after nearly a year without new shipments of raw cotton from the South, the vast cloth mills of England and France were becoming idle. Many politicians and patricians in England were very interested in throwing their support, financial and military, to the Confederacy. In France, Louis Napoleon was similarly eager to support the Confederacy.

The reasons behind this notion of supporting the Rebels were more than just a desire to keep the mills running and the people working. There were also geo-political considerations: neither England nor France were anxious for a growing United States to become a Western rival to their dominance of world trade and politics. It would help both England and France to maintain their global positions if the United States remained two separate countries (preferably squabbling with each other!)

In his concise history of the Confederacy, The Confederate Nation: 1861 – 1865, Emory Thomas notes: “… diplomatic circumstances were a bit more volatile … than historians have often assumed. The Powers had not declared irrevocable neutrality.[1] James McPherson writes in Battle Cry of Freedom, his acclaimed one-volume history of the Civil War, “Napoleon [III] dared not act unilaterally … he recognized that a confrontation … without Britain at his side might scuttle his plans. From his summer palace, Napoleon therefore instructed his foreign secretary: “Demandez au government anglais s’il ne croit pas le moment venu…“* And McPherson further notes that a Union diplomat in London, James Mason, sent his superiors dispatches warning of intervention.[2]

The threat of Anglo-French intervention in the United States Civil War was quite real and such intervention would have been disastrous for the cause of The Union. Great Britain had the greatest navy in the world, and it was chiefly lack of a navy that put the South at a great disadvantage in the war from the start. And, too, France had a large and well-trained military presence on the North American continent, in Mexico.

If the French army had triumphed at Puebla, it is very possible that Louis Napoleon would have been willing to take steps to aid the Confederacy. Had the French not been forced to withdraw and regroup, and to spend another year recovering from the Mexican victory, the United States might not exist as we know it today. Unreconstructed Rebels amongst us notwithstanding, the world would be a much different place had the Union been sundered, very likely a much worse place as well, for what nation, then, would have been able to defeat an Adolph Hitler, or to bring down a Soviet Union?

Always bear in mind that events in history do not happen in a vacuum. The events a world away affect us, and surely the events next door must as well. The failure of the Polish wheat harvest in the Fall of 1862 also helped to deter Anglo-French intervention in our Civil War (the details of which are for another essay.) But it remains that the victory celebrated by our Mexican neighbors indeed helped to make the world we have today. It was Mexico’s greatest patriotic victory, surpassing in importance and emotion even Mexico’s independence from Spain. But it also was a victory for our One Nation, Indivisible.

Here’s to the Fifth of May! And my thanks to George Krieger for reminding me of this connection.

The emotional impact of the victory is commemorated in the festivities celebrating “Cinco de Mayo.” In the modern U.S., the day has become yet another occasion for marketing hype and enthusiastic consumption, with little or no concern for the actual reason or origins of the event (just as have other national holidays such as St. Patrick’s Day, Oktoberfest, and even Chinese New Year.) But that’s terrific! We can always use another excuse to celebrate!

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Jamie Rawson
Flower Mound, Texas

[1] The Confederate Nation: 1861 – 1865, Emory M. Thomas, Harper & Row: New York, 1979. p. 182.

* “Ask the English government if they think that the moment has come…”

[2] Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, James M. McPherson, Oxford University Press: New York, 1988. pp. 554-555.

On this day of traditional foolishness, a few thoughts — not mine own — about foolishness, fools, and folly:

He who hesitates is a damned fool. — Mae West

If a man is a fool, the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking. It cannot be so easily discovered if you allow him to remain silent and look wise. But if you let him speak, the secret is out. — Woodrow Wilson

Wise men don’t need advice. Fools don’t take it. — Benjamin Franklin

Better to meet a bear robbed of her cubs Than a fool in his folly. — Proverbs 17:12

Nature never makes any blunders; when she makes a fool, she means it. — Josh Billings

Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain, and most fools do. — Benjamin Franklin

The best way to convince a fool that he is wrong is to let him have his own way. — Josh Billings

If at first you don’t succeed, then quit. There’s no use in being a fool about it. — W. C. Fields

A thing can be true and still be desperate folly. — Richard Adams

The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart. — Benjamin Franklin

Let us be thankful for fools; but for them the rest of us could not succeed. — Mark Twain.

The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes. — Winston Churchill

Anyone can make a mistake. A fool insists on repeating it. — Robertine Maynard

There is in human nature generally more of the fool than of the wise. — Francis Bacon

Silence is the virtue of fools! — Bacon

You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all of the time. — Abraham Lincoln, 1858

A learned fool is one who has read everything, and simply remembered it. — Josh Billings

Shall we their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be! — A Midsummer Night’s Dream, III:ii

Foolish behavior cannot be programed out of the system. — Ken Harris

If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. — Anatole France

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of their folly, is to fill the world with fools. — Herbert Spencer

Who is more foolish: the child afraid of the dark, or the man afraid of the light? — Maurice Freehill

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. — Emerson

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. — Goethe

Even a fool is thought wise if he is silent, And Discerning if he holds his tongue. — Proverbs 17:28

Any man is liable to err; only a fool persists in error. — Cicero

Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool can ask more than the wisest man can answer. — Charles Caleb Colton

The world is made up for the most part of fools and Knaves. — George Villiers

Even the fool is wise after the event. — Homer

Controversy equalizes fools and wise men and the fools know it. — Oliver Wendell Holmes

It was about 2,057 years ago this day, (give or take a few calendrical corrections in the interval) on 15 March, 44 BC, known in the Roman calendar as “The Ides” (“IDVS” meaning, most likely, “mid-month”) that the last leader of the Roman Republic, the dictator Gaius Julius Caesar, was murdered by a group of well‐meaning, if arguably incompetent conspirators as the Senate gathered to conduct business in Pompey’s theater in Rome.

These men styled themselves saviors of the Roman Republic and had coins minted which featured the phrase IDVS MARTIVS (The Ides of March) and depicted a “Liberty Cap”, the emblem of a freed slave, hoping to convince the people of Rome that Caesar’s murder had freed them from tyranny. Unfortunately, and quite oppositely, in the wake of the assassination of Caesar, civil strife and chaotic uncertainty dominated the political landscape for years, ending only when Julius Caesar’s adopted son, his nephew Octavius, took control of Rome as the first true Emperor of Rome, Caesar Augustus.

Under Augustus, Rome’s political situation stabilized and the economy regained its former vigor. Materially, Rome prospered, but her cherished heritage of more than 500 years of civil liberty and republican government had vanished, killed more by decades of short‐sighted petty politics among Rome’s competing factions, coupled with the indifference of the electorate, than by the daggers of Caesar’s assassins.

Whether one admires Caesar or detests him, it nevertheless remains that he’s still a pretty big part of our lives: our calendar is the one he promulgated (with one amendment by Pope Gregory XIII in the 16th century) and we have the month “July” to honor him (and “August” to honor his heir, Augustus.) Many of the checks and balances in the U.S. Constitution were emplaced by our founders specifically to prevent a modern‐day Caesar from arising here.

Because the name Caesar became so inextricably associated with imperial power, it came to mean “emperor.” The German term Kaiser and the Russian term Царь, Czar (or “Tsar”) both derive from Caesar. From early 44 BC when the Senate conferred the status of Dictator Perpetuo upon Caesar, (dictator without a fixed term) until the forced abdication of Simeon II, last Tsar of Bulgaria, in 1946 — nearly 2,000 years — the world was never without a ruler somewhere whose title derived from Caesar’s name!

“Caesar salad”, however, is not named for Julius at all, or at least not very directly: it was created at Caesar’s Hotel in Tiajuana, Mexico during the prohibition era when the Hollywood elite would drive to Mexico for cocktails and dinner. A “Caesar” salad was named for Caesare Cardini, the hotel’s Italian-born proprietor.

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Jamie Rawson
Flower Mound, Texas

The strangest poison ever known
Came from Caesar’s laurel crown.

– William Blake

It was on this day in 1875 that Georges Bizet’s magnum opus, the opera Carmen, debuted at Paris’ famous Opéra-Comique. The libtretto for Carmen, with its ultimately tragic tale of a classic lovers’ triangle, was freely derived from Prosper Merimée’s scandalous 1845 novella of the same title. Carmen is among the most popular operas in the world. Airs from Carmen are among the most widely known pieces in all of opera. The fiery and passionate Habanera from Act I is instantly recognizable. The Toreador’s song has taken on a life of its own in uses as diverse as advertising and comic parody. Carmen grew steadily in propularity from its first revival in 1883, and seems to have grown ever more popular since; it was among the top fifteen most performed operas of the 20th Century, and in these early years of the 21st Century, it has moved to a number three position. Carmen certainly secured for Bizet a place among the world’s most renowned and best love composers. Indeed, on the very day of the premiere, Bizet learned that he had been named a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, which relfected a growing appreciation of Bizet’s works, at least among the cultural élite. The great Russian composer Tchaikovsky attended one of the early performances and observed that “Carmen is a masterpiece.”

It may seem that Carmen has always been a well loved success. However, it was not always so. After the premiere on 3 March 1875, the Opéra-Comique gave only 35 more performances, many of which were to a half-filled house despite the distribution of free tickets. So Carmen was set aside for the next eight seasons.

Reviewers took exception to almost every aspect of the opera, from its distressingly unconventional heroine to its unusual and distinctive music. Bizet had attempted to capture the feel of authentic peasant music to tell the story of people of the lower classes; Paris’ musical élite found this hard to comprehend. Carmen broke with many accepted conventions of the Opéra-Comique: it told a tale of the working class and peasantry. Its heroes were not heroic at all. Carmen herself was a wanton temptress who delighted in the hold her charms had upon men. She was – Good Heavens! – “sexy!” And she was a strong willed woman who persued what she wanted. Such a character is not uncommon in today’s literature and drama, but it was quite revolutionary in Paris of 1875. Too, the story is a tragedy that has no uplifting moral; no redeeming virtues are revealed at the last. In this, the opera presages the realism that came to characterize late 19th Century theater. (It should perhaps be mentioned that the fact that Carmen is a tragedy does not clash with the repetoire of the Opéra-Comique, however. Despite the obvious translation of that name into English, the Opéra-Comique had long presented a wide range of themes, from lightly comic to serious and tragic.)

It was not until the 1883 revival that Carmen began to be widely accepted. As mentioned above, its popularity increased steadily thereafter. Though the first run comprised only 36 performances, after the 1883 revival, Carmen became a mainstay of the Opéra-Comique. As of its most recent revival in 2011, the Opéra-Comique had performed Carmen over 3,300 times. It has been estimated that Carmen has been performed essentially continuously at one location or another around the globe for the past seventy-five years.

Sadly, Georges Bizet never knew of the success that Carmen was to become. He died quite suddenly the night of the 33rd performance. Bizet was just 36 years old. Legend has it that the poor reception of his masterwork hastened his demise. I have always found it terribly sad that Bizet never knew how beloved Carmen would become. Carmen was the very first opera I listened to from start to finish when I was young, thanks to a radio broadcast from New York’s Metropolitan Opera which was in those days sponsored by Texaco. Though I was already unavoidably familiar with its most famous melodies, I was perhaps most intrigued by many of the lesser known pieces, including some of the purely instrumental bridges. It still seems to me one of the most consistently captivating of all operatic scores.

It’s hard to believe 2012 has passed;
It was way too short and went way too fast!
One more tour `round the sun we’ve seen,
And now we are starting 2013!