Toreador Song Analysis Essay

As made obvious by the title above, I will be discussing one of the most famous operas, Georges Bizet’s Carmen. The basic plot of the opera is that Carmen is part of a group of smugglers and seduces one of the guards and corrupts him. However, I would like to focus a bit more on the scene from which the music I am referring to appears, and that is with the entrance of the bullfighter in Act 2. Escamillo, the bullfighter, sings of his experiences as a toreador in the bullfighting ring. He is met with cheers. Below is a link to a performance of the Toreador Song from YouTube.

YT: https://youtu.be/4DNGMoMNLRY

This piece has a couple layers in modern media, but I will start where it began. Five Nights at Freddy’s is a popular horror video game franchise. Each game differs a bit from one another, but the premise remains the same. The game focuses on you, the player, starting a new security job at a pizzeria that has animatronic characters, which come alive at night. Your goal as the new head of security is to keep these animatronics from capturing you. You do this by watching security cameras placed throughout the pizzeria, and when something seems out of place you hide from the animatronics. You have a finite amount of energy to power your flashlight and the doors to protect yourself. When you run out of energy, thus no longer able to close the doors and hide from the animatronics, Freddy Fazbear’s Music Box Theme plays, which uses the theme from the Toreador Song from Carmen. A link to this version of the song from YouTube is below.

YT: https://youtu.be/LhKlCp5Sh9I

The second layer to modern media usage of the Toreador Song is from popular social media app, TikTok. An important aspect to the premise of the app TikTok is the creation of what are called audios, that creators then film videos to and post for people to watch. Many viral audios are popular songs that have been edited in some way, usually sped up/slowed down, bass boosting, or creating mashups of multiple songs put together. Somewhat recently, Freddy Fazbear’s Music Box Theme has caught the attention of TikTok audio creators. It started last August when creator @adbul_cisse sang the theme with an “ou” sound and beatboxed over it. Link to the original video is below. The audio took a while to go viral, but now the original video alone has 16 million views and has countless edits made with even more views.

TikTok: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTda7SgS5/

The Toreador Song theme being used as Freddy Fazbear’s Music Box Theme appears to simply be using a popular theme in a new setting. Even if the general public is unaware of the history and origin, I have a reasonable suspicion many have heard the Toreador Song theme before it became popular from the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise. I personally do not see it being metaphoric, ironic, or subversive in any way. Including the theme as a part of the game’s soundtrack is a way to expose the masses to some important parts of musical history. Whether or not that was intentional is known only to the creators of the game, but I have seen firsthand of people making the connection between the Music Box Theme and the Toreador Song. Band directors of middle and high schools that keep up with social media trends are using this as a gateway to introduce their students to opera, some even playing the Toreador Song in their ensembles.

On the other hand, the theme’s usage on TikTok could be argued to be irony. The original audio was obviously intended to be humorous and created with little attention to detail in making it sound accurate to the original. Whether or not it is deemed good is a matter of personal opinion, but I think everyone can agree upon its lack of showcasing technique training or historical background. The resulted edited versions of the audio show a bit more talent, but production is about as far away from classical opera as a musician can get. But really, I see the Toreador Song theme being popular on TikTok due to its appearance in the Five Nights at Freddy’s games, and not due to the popularity of Carmen. Its purpose here in media is simply for entertainment, as it serves as a vehicle for the creation of “memes.”  Even if one does not understand where the theme originally came from, they are still finding enjoyment in it.

I think that the Toreador Song’s usage both in the Music Box Theme of Freddy Fazbear and with the meme versions on TikTok is effective in their respective ways. Usage of a niche but well-known melody, such as the one from the Toreador Song, in such a popular video game as the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise means something different to different groups of people. Someone like me who recognized the theme without anyone else mentioning it would make the connection between the two and find it cool that it was used in a form of media that will be consumed by many. But for someone who does not have the background I do and only knows the melody as Freddy Fazbear’s Music Box Theme that plays when your energy is depleted in the game, the theme would have a different connotation attached to it. The fact that it is meant to sound like a music box also adds to the “horror” intent behind it. The original Toreador Song did not have any “spooky” connotations behind it. Rather, it was meant to be celebratory and confident. Its usage on TikTok, once again, appears to be purely entertaining. Sure, there is education content on the platform, but TikTok was created to provide people with entertainment.

Some fans do have theories as to why the creators of Five Nights at Freddy’s chose to use the theme from the Toreador March in the game, and for the specific usage as Freddy Fazbear’s Music Box Theme. Linked below is a fandom wiki post talking about this. Fans have compared you, the player, at your security guard job to a bullfighter, and the animatronics as bulls. In the game, the player takes risks and has to “fight off” the animatronics, similar to how a bullfighter fights off bulls. I feel as though theories such as this one adds more depth to the games.

Fandom: https://freddy-fazbears-pizza.fandom.com/f/p/3609968347447393486