Bizet: Carmen (Great Recordings of the Century)

Bizet: Carmen (Great Recordings of the Century)

Bizet: Carmen (Great Recordings of the Century)
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CD Details

Composer: Georges Bizet
Conductor: Sir Thomas Beecham
Orchestra: Choeur & Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion Française
Edition: Music CD
Format: Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2000-08-15
Music Label: EMI Classics
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
  1. Carmen: Prelude (Orchestre)
  2. Carmen: Sur la place (Choeur - Morales - Micaela)
  3. Carmen: Avec la garde montante (Choeur d'enfants - Morales - Jose)
  4. Carmen: C'est bien la, n'est-ce pas (Zuniga - Jose)
  5. Carmen: La cloche a sonne... Dans l'air, nous suivons des yeux la fumee (Choeur)
  6. Carmen: Quand je vous aimerai? L'amour est un oiseau rebelle (Carmen - Choeur)
  7. Carmen: Camen! sur tes pas, nous nous pressions tous! (Choeur - Carmen - Jose)
  8. Carmen: Quels regards ! Quelle effronterie !
  9. Carmen: Parle-moi do ma mere !
  10. Carmen: Reste la, maintenant, pendant que je lirai (Jose - Micaela)
  11. Carmen: Au secours ! Au secours ! (Choeur - Zuniga)
  12. Carmen: Mon officier, c'etait une querelle (Jose - Zuniga - Carmen - Choeur)
  13. Carmen: Pres des remparts de Seville (Carmen - Jose)
  14. Carmen: Voici l'ordre ; partez (Zuniga - Carmen)
Music CD 2
  1. Carmen: Entr'acte
  2. Carmen: Les tringles des sistres tintaient
  3. Carmen: Messieurs, Pastia me dit
  4. Carmen: Vivat ! vivat le Torero !
  5. Carmen: Votre toast, je peux vous le rendre
  6. Carmen: La belle, un mot
  7. Carmen: Eh bien ! vite, quelles nouvelles ?
  8. Carmen: Mais qui donc attends-tu ?
  9. Carmen: Haite la !
  10. Carmen: Enfin, c'est toi !
  11. Carmen: Tout doux, Monsieur, tout doux
  12. Carmen: La fleur que tu m'avais jetee
  13. Carmen: Non, tu ne m'aimes pas... La-bas, la-bas, dans la montagne
  14. Carmen: Hola Carmen ! Hola ! Hola !
Music CD 3
  1. Carmen: Entr'acte
  2. Carmen: Ecoute, ecoute, compagnon, ecoute
  3. Carmen: Reposons-nous une heure ici, mes camarades
  4. Carmen: Melons ! Coupons !
  5. Carmen: Eh bien ?
  6. Carmen: Quant au douanier, c'est notre affaire
  7. Carmen: C'est des contrebandiers le refuge ordinaire Je dis, que rien ne m'epouvante
  8. Carmen: Je ne me trompe pas... c'est lui sur ce rocher
  9. Carmen: Quelques lignes plus bas
  10. Carmen: Hola, hola ! Jose !
  11. Carmen: Entr'acte
  12. Carmen: A deux cuartos ! A duex cuartos !
  13. Carmen: Les voici ! voici la quadrille !
  14. Carmen: C'est toi !... Camen, il est temps encore
  15. Carmen: Viva ! viva ! la course est belle !

Music reviews of Bizet: Carmen (Great Recordings of the Century)

Music Review: LES VOICI
Rating: 5 Stars

In many ways Carmen seems to me more to resemble a modern musical than to be like other contemporary operas. The big ensembles and finales are `operatic' in the usual sense certainly, and it settles down to being something like a normal 19th century opera by act III. However it's in the nature of things that it fixes its real `profile' and identity in the listener's mind in the earlier acts. The role of the chorus in act I makes a big impression for one thing - Verdi didn't give his chorus this kind of role, but Bernstein did. Again, there is only one solo in the entire work that I would describe as an `aria' in the usual sense, namely the one in act III which is explicitly so described, as if the composer was making this point himself. Carmen's Habanera and Seguidilla from act I are not arias but songs, and the distinction is not just a matter of the dance rhythms. Many of Verdi's heroines sing arias to ordinary waltz or bolero rhythms, but what they sing are still arias as we would understand the term in Mozart - if someone were minded to make the opera into an ordinary play these arias could be made into spoken soliloquies. If anyone were to try to make a stage play out of Bizet's Carmen, not only would Carmen's solos still have to be given as songs, much of the music comprising the entire work would probably still have to be there as songs, dances and instrumental interludes for the band. We might notice very little difference, especially if the use of the recitative texts, nowadays unfashionable and not `correct', were omitted.

Beecham's Carmen has enjoyed the status of a classic from the day it was first issued 45 years or so ago. In my own view it more than deserves this status, and it is gratifying to see this view apparently shared widely. I don't myself agonise unduly over the question whether Carmen is best performed and heard as opera comique or as grand opera, for the simple reason that I hear it as something else entirely, almost foreshadowing West Side Story in a number of ways. Any criticism of the cast can only be marginal. De los Angeles had one of the most beautiful voices of her era, and she is in her wonderful prime here. I suppose it might be possible to want the heroine to sound more of a minx and less refined, but I myself am completely relaxed about the matter. She has an authentic Spanish quality to my ears, the performance is full of soul and passion, and when it's in sound alone it's always better to err on the side of beauty and musicianship rather than of vividness and drama. Gedda's voice is one I have always admired hugely - not a Wagnerian tenor, but one particularly well suited not only to Verdi but also to Berlioz, as owners of his performance as Faust will gladly testify. He doesn't have or try to affect a particularly `Spanish' sound, but Bizet himself was not Spanish either. Janine Micheau as Micaela seems to me to do particularly well with her star spot in act III, and indeed she and the rest of the cast seem admirable to me more or less without exception.

This is another Beecham classic, and it seems to me that we have every reason to be grateful that he was so tyrannical and exacting with both his orchestral players and the recording personnel. The quality of the recordings he obtained was almost without exception above the average for its time, sometimes outstandingly so, and a little modern touching-up is very welcome in addition. Effects of distance, perfectly good in the first place, are even better now, and the sound of the orchestra and chorus is caught very well, with some particularly clear French enunciation from the latter to enhance what seems to me very good French from the principals. Beecham's own special wizardry is here at its finest - tempi perfect, orchestral phrasing with the familiar grace and magic, tonal balance and quality exquisite. To them all I say with Escamillo and the librettists

`Votre toast, je peux vous le rendre'.
More Bizet: Carmen (Great Recordings of the Century) free music reviews:
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Description of Bizet: Carmen (Great Recordings of the Century)

As remastered for EMI's Great Recordings of the Century series, this classic 1959 Carmen sounds marginally better than its previous silver disc incarnation. Tape hiss is reduced, but without any compromise in residual overtones. A/B comparisons also tipped the scales in favor of the present reissue for newfound clarity and character among the lower-pitched instruments and the choral forces. Like many conductors of his generation, Beecham viewed Carmen as grand opera, instead of opera comique, and opted for the once-ubiquitous, now-discredited Guirard recitatives. But the great conductor's ebullient pacing and light-handed orchestral balancing galvanizes his splendid cast to idiomatic heights. Victoria de los Angeles gets under the skin of the complex title role as few mezzos have--so much so that it is easy to take for granted her alluring timbre and meticulous musicianship. Nicolai Gedda's ardent and alive Don José is vocally fresher but a tad less insightful than his 1964 remake partnering Callas. Well sung but less individually portrayed are Ernst Blanc's Escamillo and Janine Michaeau's Micaela. Carmen sets of more recent vintage offer more authentic presentations of Bizet's text, to be sure. Yet Beecham's theatrical flair still burns brightly and will enrich Carmen lovers who have yet to experience this delightful, ageless recording. --Jed Distler

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