The Name Of The Carmen Character "Lieutenant Zuniga"

The French obviously pronounce it tronco (accent on the a), the Italians obviously pronounce it piano (accent on the i), Spanish speakers obviously pronounce it sdrucciolo (accent on the u) and with the gn of ragno. As someone used to say, the world is beautiful because it is diverse

If there is no «˜» symbol on the n in Spanish, the n is pronounced as in Italian; nor is it automatic that it is pronounced with the stress on the antepenultimate syllable (unless there is an accent, which in Spanish is used much more than in Italian). Therefore, a Spaniard would pronounce Zuniga quite simply as «Sunìga». (Obviously, I am referring to the name as it is written in the score, i.e., Zuniga, without either an accent on the u nor the little symbol - I never remember what it's called - on the n).

tilde

Here it is....

Sorry, I couldn't resist...

anyway, regarding the pronunciations of Carmen, there have been heated discussions for a long time.

There should be two variants, either Spanish or French. And for correctness, French should be used. I believe the libretto on Zuniga doesn't clarify much, but on Carmen more than once it supports the pronunciation "Carmèn", which is exquisitely French...

In the meantime, I have consulted a Spanish friend who replies to me as follows (I am only translating the salient parts):

Pues aunque en la versión francesa se llama Zuniga, según el libreto de Meilhac y Halévy, en castellano (idioma del lugar donde transcurre la historia) el nombre sería Zúñiga. [(...)in Castilian, which is the language of the place where the story takes place, the surname would be Zúñiga]

Ahora, si mal no recuerdo según el libreto, argumento y en cualquier programa de mano sabemos el nombre del personaje (Zúñiga en castellano y Zuniga en otros idiomas en donde no existe la 'ñ'), en ningún momento se le menciona en la ópera, pero el sonido sería con la grafía 'gn' entonces sonaría como "ZúGNiga". [if I remember correctly (...) at no point is he mentioned during the opera (...)]

Pero bueno, me estoy alejando. Volviendo a la pregunta en español/castellano el apellido sería Zúñiga, cuyo origen es navarro y fue castellanizado en 1475 más o menos ya que durante esas épocas de edad media utilizaban indistintamente Estuniga, Astunica, Stúñica, Estúñiga y nombres que sonaban similares y que aparecieron en los 1200.

[Returning to the question, in Spanish/Castilian the surname would be Zúñiga, whose origin is Navarrese and was Castilianized around 1475, since during those Middle Ages eras they used interchangeably Estuniga, Astunica, Stúñica, Estúñiga and names that sounded similar which appeared in the 1200s.]

Ahora parece ser que los libretistas a pesar de que la historia estaba situada en España, decidieron poner Zuniga . Ojo que en la novela original de Mérimée no se menciona a Zúñiga, ni siquiera a Micaela. Usualmente en cualquier parte de Iberoamérica cambiarán, entonces, Zuniga por Zúñiga.

[So it seems that the librettists, even though the story was set in Spain, decided to use Zuniga. Note that in Mérimée's original novel, neither Zúñiga nor Micaela are mentioned.]

I hope this is useful.

Thanks to everyone and in particular to Carlos

geppino12575 wrote:

Here it is....

Sorry, I couldn't resist...

In fact, the Napoli fan version was a hypothesis