The musical Carmen was at the Performing Arts Center last night. The Fox Valley Symphony was terrific and the performances of many individuals and the White Heron Chorale were outstanding. One more reminder of what an incredible place Appleton is for the arts. The talent of the many voices in the cast and the Symphony were truly impressive. In larger cities, you'd have to fight an hour of traffic, pay $30 parking, and pay much more for tickets. Here in Appleton, thanks to the PAC and the tremendous arts-supporting community, we have it brought to our doorstep where people can park for $1 in the parking ramp by the PAC or for free if they walk a couple of blocks. Kudos to the cast and crew for a terrific evening. But please tell me, what was up with using real cigarettes?

There is a famous smoking scene in Carmen where women workers departing from a cigarette factory tempt soldiers as they smoke. The scene can be done without lit cigarettes. There are stage cigarettes that can be used which rely on talcum powder or use other methods to produce simulated smoke. But even unlit cigarettes are fine for a stage performance when the audience isn't too close and understands that real smoking would be unwise. Nothing would have been lost by having people wave fake cigarettes in the air and pretend to smoke. We would have gotten it. This is the modern era: we understand that smoking is dangerous, that it causes cancer and numerous other diseases, that it is offensive and irritating to many non-smokers, that it can harm nearby non-smokers, and that it is one of the worse things a singer could choose to do. But to require singers to smoke? Hello?

Not only was the use of tobacco dangerous and harmful for those who were required to smoke on stage, it also had a negative effect on everyone on stage (orchestra included) and on many in the audience. One person near the front told me after the performance that he almost had to walk out because of his physical reaction to all that smoke. At the very back of the PAC, in the cheap seats, my wife had physical irritation from the smoke in that scene (was more of a problem for her - I was OK, actually, just a touch of irritation). In a city with a smoking ban, this was really a surprise. (Though for the record, I disagree with the smoking ban for private bars and restaurants because I feel that private property owners ought to be able decide what is and is not allowed on their property. But banning it in indoor public arenas like, say, the PAC makes a lot of sense.)

During the smoking scene, long before I realized that real cigarettes were in use, I whispered to my wife, "Sponsored by the Philip Morris Corporation." Hey, maybe I was right! Hundreds of young people were exposed to the example of beautiful professional singers getting a fix of real nicotine with cigarettes, in a positive and seductive way. Would be hard to come up with a better ad than that. Is it beyond reason that Philip Morris or some other tobacco corporation night provide a little help for productions like this? At least a few cases of complimentary low-tar cigarettes? If not, they're missing a huge opportunity. ;)

OK, I'm overreacting, but I hope in the future these issues will be considered from a variety of perspectives. Across the pond, the Scotts took a difference approach. For its performance of Carmen, the Scottish Opera went beyond merely using talcum-powder cigarettes to present a revised, healthier version of that scene. Might have been a wise decision.

So here's my suggested revision (update: uh, this part is not serious - sorry if that's not clear!). In addition to using fake cigarettes, let's also fix the ending. I hate the stupidity of the final scene. Carmen is clearly at risk as her drunken ex-lover is threatening her in a public place with lots of help around. She should have simply fled, screamed for help, got a restraining order, and survived. Instead, she virtually walks into the loser's knife to let him stab her. How stupid. If Carmen must die, let's make it a little more plausible. In the final scene, as she faces Don Jose, she begins coughing and then keels over from emphysema or lung cancer as Don Jose signs a mournful song about how tobacco killed his true love. Now that would be a tragedy more people could related to, for it's one that hundreds of thousands of people have experienced due to the horrific dangers of that addictive drug, tobacco - a drug that people should never be required to use, on-stage or off, and one that audiences should never be exposed to in any presumably smoke-free theater without warning.