Carmen- the opera what are you suppose to learn from it?

Question:What is the theme of the opera, what are you suppose to learn from it?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: What is the theme of the opera, what are you suppose to learn from it?

I think it's just a typical Romantic-period emotional bloodbath and there's no intelligent lesson to learn from it. Carmen is a greedy slatternly lowerclass climber, the Toreador is a self-servintg creep, etc. People in the 1800s generally rejected the mind in favor of the heart, they thought one should chase impulses no matter where they led, they thought the story of Carmen was full of emotionalism and spectacle and so they enjoyed it. Their tastes were similar to those of the general population today.

If you want to LEARN, you must refer to ancient Greek theatre, or maybe Shakespeare, or even early 20th-century plays like Death of a Salesman. If you want moralistic opera, go to Mozart. Bizet, Verdi, Puccini, and those other Romanticists will teach you nothing, their aim is to make you feel.

While I'd agree that the point of the opera is more entertainment than moral lesson, I don't agree that people in the 19th century though you should follow your impulses at all costs. But it is true that romanticism, not surprisingly, placed romantic love high on the priorities list. A story in which a couple decided that they shouldn't really be together, despite their strong feelings, because it wouldn't be practical wouldn't be a very romantic one!

But I think there is a moral in "Carmen"--it is a warning about how, for a respectable man, following the lure of a lower-class woman can lead to destruction.