Carmen is a beautiful gypsy girl, at the beginning of the opera making
an honest living in a cigarette factory.  The usual adjective used to
describe her is "fiery".  She is unfamiliar with the concept of delayed
gratification.  She talks a lot about being free, by which she means
free of any restraint whatsoever.  It seems to me that the appropriate
modern term is "psychopath"; although there is also something to be said 
for the period term, "fiend from Hell."  The latter is used by Micaela, 
the good girl of the opera.

Escamillo, the torero of the toreador song, is presented in a relatively 
favorable light, but is still not the sort you would want marrying into 
your family.  He is an egotistical jerk.  But he has the perception 
to know what Carmen is, and is trusting in his celebrity to let him 
come out winner in a cute game of "love 'em and leave 'em" with Carmen.

The victim in the case is Don Jose (pronounced with a French J instead
of a Spanish J - Bizet, author of the quintessential Spanish opera,
was neither particularly knowledgeable about or fond of Spain).  Don Jose
starts the opera as a promising young soldier, with a girl who loves him
and an ancient mother at home.  Carmen flirts with him until he is 
utterly smitten.  (This didn't come off too well.  I seem to remember it
working much better the only other time I've seen this opera, a few 
years ago on PBS.  I'm not sure if it was because this Carmen wasn't 
very good at flirting, or whether flirting works better on the small 
screen than on the large stage.)  Anyway, Carmen gets in trouble with the
cops over a brawl with one of the other cigarette makers, and the 
smitten Don Jose is persuaded to let her escape.  As a result he 
spends a couple of months in the Jusgado, Lieutenant Zuniga believing
that a charge of either incompetence or conspiracy is justified, and not
much caring which it is.

When Don Jose gets out of jail and goes back on duty (presumably with 
a small black mark on his career as soldier), he goes to find Carmen.
Unfortunately, he finds her at just the same time Lt. Zuniga does, and
ends up committing considerable violence upon him, which is definitely
a large black mark on his career as a soldier.  He looks for another 
livelihood, and takes up with Carmen's friends, who happen to be 
smugglers.  Carmen is already starting to find him a bit of a drag, 
restricting her freedom, when Escamillo wanders into the smugglers' 
hangout, and suggests they hook up.  Carmen is willing and Don Jose is 
upset.  In the next scene, Don Jose accosts Carmen outside the bull ring, 
where she is on her way in to see the exquisite Escamillo.  She tells 
Don Jose to bug off.  He claims she owes him something for ruining his 
life.  She says "It's over," and adds some rather nasty personal remarks.  
It's not entirely clear if she is really trying to drive him away, or if 
she is just enjoying saying nasty things to somebody she no longer cares 
for.  In any case, she has the supreme confidence in his manipulability, 
and is rather surprised when he is pushed too far, and murders her. Being
a basically good sort, he then calls for the police to come take him away.  
An outcome not unknown for the victims of psychopaths to this day.

Last year, and last year only, Santa Fe Opera had the handicap seats
in a great location in the middle of the house.  They then realized
that a wheelchair space takes up the space of two ordinary seats, and
made the understandable decision that if they were going to lose a 
seat it would be one of the cheap seats at the back of the house.
Sigh.

They have a new electronic libretto system, with a couple of lines of
LCD display in front of each seat.  Minor difficulty in practice - 
the display is too far away for the bifocals, and too low to see in
the distant vision without bending ones head down.  I ended up looking
at the libretto display of the seat ahead of me, which was about right.
Minor aesthetic problems as well.  It is very curious to hear the very 
romantic song, when the libretto is saying "Say hello to my mother when you 
get home." I'm sure the dissonance was intended by Bizet, but it somehow 
has a different feel when it is between the printed words and the music 
than it would between the words of a song and the expression it is sung 
with.  Still, all in all, I like the system.