G. Bizet - Carmen - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Georges Bizet - Carmen [COMPACT DISCS] date 01/01/2005

Bizet's opera Carmen was first produced at the Opera-Comique in Paris in 1875. The French genre of opera-comique had arisen in the eighteenth century as a Gallic counterpart of the Italian opera buff, injecting an air of contemporary realism into operatic form. The success of operetta in the nineteenth century offered a challenge to the form, which retained the characteristic of the German Singspiel, spoken dialogue taking the place of the recitative of opera serial or French grand opera, but increasingly lacked power or conviction. Carmen, in it's original version with spoken dialogue, derived largely from Prosper Mérimée's novel on which the opera was based. Created something of a scandal, and opened the way to a new form of opera. While nineteenth century French audiences at the Opera-Comique might find in Micaela a recognizable character, Carmen, a vicious outcast from decent society, was not the ideal heroine for popular family entertainment.

This delightful selection from Naxos where, as usual, the playing, conducting and recorded sound cannot be faulted, is topped and tailed by the third and fourth movements of Bizet's 'Symphony in C' that he composed at the age of seventeen. In between are, amongst others, the best known bits of 'Carmen', 'The Pearl Fishers' and the 'L'Arlesienne Suites'. The music on this collection, with it's catchy melodic invention tied to sudden, serendipitous changes in tempo and pitch, harkens back to one of the fathers of French music, Jean-Philippe Rameau.