Blood, guts, sex, bulls and smugglers

[Bert Coules]

There's something hugely enjoyable about a full-blooded, no-holds-barred performance of Carmen. None of the singers in this afternoon's Vienna State Opera recording strike me as particularly polished or ideally cast, but my word they're really going for it.

[Ferretfancy]

Hello Bert,
You do need plenty of blood and guts in Carmen, Don Jose is such a wimp isn't he? What does she see in him?

[Bert Coules]

He's a challenge: he's not interested in her, so she goes after him. That's the initial attraction. And maybe her interest brings out something new in him - you can't imagine the chap we first meet having the guts to desert, fall in with a band of criminals and then commit murder, so he obviously has changed a bit. But it's interesting that at the end he just meekly (a) confesses and (b) asks to be arrested. So his essential wimpiness - or perhaps his essential decency - wasn't that far buried after all.

[Flosshilde]

I missed it (some festival or the other that demands a lot of preparation got in the way) but I do like Carmen, & as you say it does need conviction. Tyhe ending always gets to me - a wonderfully conceived bit of theatre.

[Chris Newman]

I love the opera. I believe it to be the first Verismo opera. Carmen is out to enjoy herself and as hard as nails. Don Jose is sadly bipolar and cannot see a life as it is. Bizet, Puccini, Janacek, Charpentier wrote the real in your face operas. Oh, OK! I better let Cav, Pag and Peter Grimes in as well.

[Daring Tripod]

I also thoroughly enjoyed this full blooded performance. The performers and conductor really had the ‘bit between their teeth’.

It is difficult for us to understand nowadays how this work failed when it was first performed in Paris.

[Simon]

It is difficult for us to understand nowadays how this work failed when it was first performed in Paris.

Not for me! The story's unpleasant, the music's naff - especially the couple of pieces that everybody knows - and I have no wish ever to hear or see anything about it again!

Chacun a son gout, of course! :-)

[Flosshilde]

The story's unpleasant,

Simon, do you also think that 'Tosca' is a 'shabby little shocker'?

[rodney_h_d]

I wouldn't go as far as Simon, but after experiencing many performances of Carmen and Tosca, I would now be much more likely to go and see Tosca. Madam Butterfly is Puccini's nasty one.

[StephenO]

Madam Butterfly is Puccini's nasty one.

They're all rather nasty, aren't they? Puccini was clearly no feminist nor a lover of non-violence. The music, though, is a different matter. Nothing nasty about (most of) that.

[Flosshilde]

I wouldn't go as far as Simon, but after experiencing many performances of Carmen and Tosca, I would now be much more likely to go and see Tosca. Madam Butterfly is Puccini's nasty one.

Of the two, I think that Tosca is much the most sadistic (assuming that's what was meant by the 'shabby little shocker' comment). Carmen is about passion - romantic or sexual - and as such I don't think the story can be described as 'unpleasant', any more than, say, Rigoletto (actually, thinking about it, Rigoletto is pretty unpleasant, whereas the story of Carmen is honest)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Sentimentalist that I am, I could never understand why Don Jose didn't marry Michaela (particularly when she sang as beautifully as Freni in the RCA/VPO/Karajan recording.)

[Chris Newman]

Not for me! The story's unpleasant, the music's naff - especially the couple of pieces that everybody knows - and I have no wish ever to hear or see anything about it again!

Chacun a son gout, of course! :-)

Cosi fan Tutte is pretty distasteful too.

[Simon]

Cosi fan Tutte is pretty distasteful too.

You're right on the morality level, but then, there's Mozart's music to balance that. Rather like, as Stephen says, happens with Puccini!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

If we're talking about distasteful, Verdi's "Il Trovatore" takes some beating.