Bizet: Carmen

The Essential Opera Collection is an exciting new mid-price series that brings together popular operas and classic productions in simple stylish packaging. The ten launch titles represent the leading opera houses of the world, including The Royal Opera House, Teatro Real, Paris Opera, Glyndebourne and The Netherlands Opera.

This TV give to us some advantages, like this :
1. Engineers from hell.....
I would have been very happy to give this five stars. It's Bizet's original idea with spoken recititives and the French is darn good. Von Otter presents a very interesting, not only sexy, but erotic take on the role (also in line with Bizet's ideas) and everyone but Escamillo is excellent. So, okay, this Don Jose isn't Domingo, but neither is Domingo, no matter how much I love him. Excamillo's acting is just fine, but my preference is a bit more heft to the baritone. My only serious complaint and, thus, the three stars, is the sound, which is so bloody awful, I end up being my own sound engineer by tuning up and down constantly. At times, one can barely hear Von Otter over the crashing orchestra and this problem lies, in this case, with the engineers, not the conductor (unless I'm very much mistaken). The sets and costumes are wonderful and the whole production is delightful; if only I had heard it live....

2. Raw, Visceral Carmen
I'll admit to huge reservations about one of my favorite mezzo's taking this role I never felt would be right for her, but Anne Sofie von Otter is the Carmen of one's dreams - or nightmares. A more gutter wenchy, ballbusting, shrewish, trash talking, vulgar Carmen I've never seen. To the critics who last summer asked "what man would ever want a woman like that?" all I can say is von Otter is so overtly sexual and raw that she makes Carmen something she has not been for me for a very long time - dangerously fascinating. This is not like any Carmen's I've seen the last last 20 years, coming more closely to Peter Brooks "Tragedie" - even outdoing it.

This Carmen is also one of the very best ensemble acted operas I've seen in ages and after one viewing is ready to be placed at the top of my DVD list.

To be sure, this will not be a Carmen to everyone's liking; it's rude, crude, violent, and emotionally dark - with an almost Dickensian quality that sends it and all its...

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Engineers from hell.....
I would have been very happy to give this five stars. It's Bizet's original idea with spoken recititives and the French is darn good. Von Otter presents a very interesting, not only sexy, but erotic take on the role (also in line with Bizet's ideas) and everyone but Escamillo is excellent. So, okay, this Don Jose isn't Domingo, but neither is Domingo, no matter how much I love him. Excamillo's acting is just fine, but my preference is a bit more heft to the baritone. My only serious complaint and, thus, the three stars, is the sound, which is so bloody awful, I end up being my own sound engineer by tuning up and down constantly. At times, one can barely hear Von Otter over the crashing orchestra and this problem lies, in this case, with the engineers, not the conductor (unless I'm very much mistaken). The sets and costumes are wonderful and the whole production is delightful; if only I had heard it live....
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