BIZET : CARMEN

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 19th of March 2017 at 6.05 - 9.35 pm
Sunday 5th of April 2015 at 6.03 - 9.50 pm
Sunday 23rd of March 2013 at 3 - 6.30 pm 
Sunday 5th of October 2008 at 3 - 6 pm
Sunday 16th of September 2007 at 3 pm
Sunday 23rd of March 2007 at 3 pm

BIZET: Carmen, an opera in four acts
The free-spirited gypsy Carmen chooses freedom in love and in death, defying the jealous passion of the obsessed soldier Don José
2017Carmen........................ Clémentine Margaine
Don José...................... Roberto Aronica
Micaëla........................ Maria Agresta
Escamillo..................... Kyle Ketelsen
Moralès........................ John Moore
Zuniga.......................... Nicolas Testé
Mercédès..................... Shirin Eskandani
Frasquita...................... Danielle Talamantes
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Asher Fisch 2015
Carmen............................. Elina Garanca
Don José........................... Younghoon Lee
Escamillo.......................... Gábor Bretz
Micaëla............................. Ailyn Pérez
Zuniga.............................. Richard Bernstein
Moralès............................. Trevor Scheunemann
Frasquita........................... Danielle Talamantes
Mercédès.......................... Ginger Costa-Jackson
Lillas Pastia...................... Timothy Breese Miller
Le Dancaïre...................... Brian Montgomery
Le Remendado................. Keith Jameson
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Louis Langrée


INTRODUCTION
SYNOPSIS
LIBRETTO (French)
LIBRETTO (English)

Here we go again, with the most frequently performed opera in the repertoire. Am I wrong? Or is it Verdi's La Traviata, or Puccini's La Bohème? In all three cases the heroine (the female protagonist, anyway) dies at the grand finale; but Carmen does not suffer from tuberculosis (though all those cigarettes could ultimately have produced lung cancer if she had not been murdered). We have watched the two Italian ones in our local video group (with Domingo and Pavarotti), but I have never shown Carmen (not complete, anyway). I have to learn to stop hating myself for liking it, and even getting excited about it, and tapping my feet and whistling and singing while I am listening to it. I saw it in Wanganui a few years ago, and Opera South was going to put it on to inaugurate their company. I almost forgot: I have actually sung in scenes from Carmen in concerts. (In 2013 the Choral Federation will put it together in a weekend workshop in Wellington.)

This is another case of obsessive possessive love culminating in disaster; but this time it is the man in the relationship who is driven murderously mad by love. Don José is the antagonist. Why did he pursue this fickle passionate Gypsy woman (Victoria de los Angeles, for example), when he could have married nice motherly Micaëla (Victoria de los Angeles, again, or Joan Sutherland, or Kiri Te Kanawa)? Incidentally, or more importantly, the Don José of the original novella, Carmen, by Prosper Mérimée (1845) was not innocent and naive, but a murderous brigand.

If you buy a recording of Carmen you are likely to get Placido Domingo (though not singing the Toreador's song, even though he could, in his frequently heard baritone voice.). Placido is in the 1984 French-Italian movie, which is judged by Leonard Maltin to be 'overbaked and unbelievably inept' (but he doesn't like musicals). Here Domingo (with Lorin Maazel conducting) is opposite Julia Migenes(-Johnson), who visited us in New Zealand. Elsewhere Placido partners Tatiana Troyanos (with Solti furioso wielding the baton mercilessly, but producing 'a dramatic and sensitive account'), and Teresa Berganza (with Claudio Abbado, who proved himself a good Mensch conducting the Philharmonic in Berlin for years). Carmens on disc (but not on stage) are: Victoria de los Angeles, Jessye Norman, Maria Callas, Marilyn Horne. (I am listening to genuine Gypsy music on the radio at this moment; you know that their original homeland was in NW India; they are authentic Aryans, and should not have been on Hitler's extermination agenda.)

These days, the greatest evil in Carmen is the cigarette-smoking. I am reminded of our city's Centrepoint theatre, which has long  prohibited smoking on the premises, because it has deleterious effects on the actors' voices. And yet the players themselves would be puffing on cigs at half-time, and sometimes even on stage. Singers who are addicted to it are taking terrible risks (and just imagine more coughs on the stage than in the audience at an opera). I can detect the smoke in Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's voice.

Finally, let's see what Denis Forman says about Carmen in his Good Opera Guide. He points out that in Prosper Mérimée's novel José is a multiple murderer before he meets Carmen; but forget I told you that, or we will have absolutely no sympathy for the hapless lover. Forman thinks it is "near bullet-proof", having "survived being set in a used-car lot" at the London Coliseum, having been successful in the Carmen Jones film version (on a train), and having "flourished in a recent splendid film" (!). "Carmen is great, Carmen is a wonder", and he awards it Alpha-plus.

Georges Bizet (1838 - 1875) CARMEN (1875)
The performance is from Sydney, the Harbour (on a raft on the  water).
The stage in Act I should show  a bridge (yes, but it is oversized) and a cigarette factory (the opera house has this role). Incidentally, the original factory in Seville is now a university.
http://operawonk.blogspot.co.nz/2007/09/bizet-carmen.html
Setting : 19th-century Spain, in Seville.
Micaëla (a sweet country girl, in love with José) Nicole Car
Carmen (a beautiful Gypsy, briefly involved romantically with José) Rinat Shaham
Don José (a soldier, committed to Micaela, besotted with Carmen) Dmytro Popov
Escamillo (a toreador, chasing bulls and Carmen) Andrew Jones
Australian Opera orchestra and chorus. Brian Castles-Onion
12 selected scenes
Act 1
(1) Carmen’s entrance. She comes out of the factory, with the women who work there.
She does the rounds of the dragoons, singing her provocative love song, the Habanera: L’amour est un oiseau rebelle (Love is a rebellious bird, untamable. Beware).
Urged to choose a lover, she throws a flower to (or at) Don José, and goes back to work.
(2) Micaela’s  return. She first appeared at the start of the drama, and now she brings a letter from José’s mother (which contains a request for him to return home and marry Micaela); also a transported kiss. He accepts.
(3) Carmen’s return. She attacks a woman, with a knife. She is arrested and handed over to José. She sings a seguidilla, tempting him with the prospect of a passionate night at Lillas Pastia’s tavern. He lets her escape. He is imprisoned for a month,
Act 2
(4) Carmen’s performance. Song and dance routine (on a table): La la la lalala la (Beat out that rhythm on a drum in Carmen Jones).
(5) Escamillo’s grand entrance. He arrives in a car with his admirers The Toreador’s song. He shows interest in Carmen, but she is not  ready for him at this point.
(6) José’s arrival. Carmen greets him, and dances for him, as promised. A bugle call from the barracks summons him, and he prepares to leave. But first he tells her how he has treasured the flower she threw to him. She wants proof of his love: he should leave with her on a smuggling exoedition that has been organized. (He is then involved in a fight with a superior officer, and this means he must flee, with Carmen and the contrabandists.)
Act 3
(7) Several months have passed. The band of smugglers is in the mountains. Don José has told Carmen that his mother lives in a nearby village; she tells him to go back to his mother; he gets angry; she suggests he is thinking of killing her; certainly she has seen in the cards thet they will die together. Carmen then indulges in a spot of fortune-telling with the cards, with her friends Frasquita and Mercédès; the results are “fortune” and “amour”, but for Carmen  “la mort”.
(8) Micaela arrives, trembling: I tell myself that nothing will frighten me, but I am dying of fright; I will have to face that wicked woman. Protect me, Lord.
(9) Escamillo appears (he has been rounding up bulls, a likely story!). A duel occurs with his rival José, but Carmen interrupts it, and saves the toreador from being knifed to death by José.
(10) Micaela tells him his mother is dying and wants to see him. Carmen tells him to go. He agrees to  leave with Micaela, but he will return, and woe betide Carmen if she links up with Escamillo, who has invited her to meet him at his bullfight in Seville.
(11) The crowd is gathered in Seville, and the bullfighters parade to the arena. Carmen and Escamillo speak of their love. Carmen’s two friends warn her that José is there.
(12) Confrontation between Carmen and her jealous lover. She boldly declares to José that she now loves Escamillo. When she throws his ring away, he is overcome by rage, and he kills her with his knife (in a novel manner).

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 23rd of March 2013 at 3 - 6.30 pm
BIZET: Carmen, an opera in four acts
The free-spirited gypsy Carmen chooses freedom in love and in death, defying the jealous passion of the obsessed soldier Don José
Carmen........................ Anita Rachvelishvili
Don José...................... Nikolai Schukoff
Escamillo..................... Ildar Abdrazakov
Micaëla........................ Ekaterina Sherbachenko
Zuniga.......................... Richard Bernstein
Moralès........................ Trevor Scheunemann
Frasquita...................... Danielle Pastin
Mercédès..................... Jennifer Johnson Cano
Le Dancaïre................. Marco Nisticò
Le Remendado............ Scott Scully
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Michele MariottSunday 16th of September 2007 at 3 pm
BIZET: Carmen, an opera in four acts
Carmen......................... Anna Caterina Antonacci
Don José....................... Jonas Kaufmann
Escamillo....................... Ildebrando D'Arcangelo
Micaëla......................... Nora Amsellem
Zuniga........................... Matthew Rose
Moralès........................ Jacques Imbrailo
Frasquita....................... Elena Xanthoudakis
Mercédès...................... Viktoria Vizin
Dancaïre....................... Jean Sébastian Bou
Remendado................... Jean-Paul Fouchécourt
Royal Opera House Chorus & Orch/Antonio Pappano
(recorded 19 December 2006 at the Royal Opera House,
Covent Garden by BBC)
This stunning account is available on video disc. 

Sunday 23rd of March 2007 at 3 pm
Carmen, an opera in four acts
Carmen......................... Olga Borodina
Micaëla......................... Krassimira Stoyanova
Don José....................... Marcelo Alvarez
Escamillo....................... Lucio Gallo
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/
Emmanuel Villaume (EBU)

 Sunday 5th of October 2008 at 3 - 6 pm)
Carmen......................... Tatiana Troyanos
Don José....................... Plácido Domingo
Escamillo....................... José van Dam
Micaëla......................... Kiri Te Kanawa
Frasquita....................... Norma Burrowes
Mercédès...................... Jane Berbié
Dancaïre....................... Michel Roux
Remendado................... Michel Sénéchal
Zuniga........................... Pierre Thau
Moralès........................ Thomas Allen
Lillas Pastia................... Jacques Loreau
Le Guide....................... Pierre-Jean Remy
John Alldis Choir, London Phil/Georg Solti
(Decca 414 489)

2:00 The Sunday Feature
Carmen
Elric Hooper and Des Wilson discuss Bizet's classic opera (RNZ)

3:00 Opera on Sunday
BIZET: Carmen, an opera in four acts

There are a couple of eye-catching misprints in the very helpful material from the NYMetropera archives (available to you simply by clicking on the links, but not any more): (1) "he lovers her" (one way of putting it, to bring out the obsession of the passion); (2) "the immortality of the story" (true enough, but this was one of the reasons why the opera was considered shocking in 1875, as containing sex and violence).
COMPOSER
BACKGROUND
CHARACTERS
SYNOPSIS
STORYLINE
UNDERGROUND
ANALYSIS
LIBRETTO