Carmen elina garanca roberto alagna biography

At the Paris première of Carmen in 1875, the French critics thought the story scandalous and obscene and dismissed Georges Bizet’s music as garish. It played to poor houses. The Opera-Comique’s respectable middle-class audiences found the opera too realistic and risqué for their taste.

Bizet died three month later, aged 36, unaware that he had composed the world’s most popular and greatest opera.

Lurid crimes passionnels have perennially proved popular at the box office and Carmen is always a good choice for somebody coming to opera for the first time. The drama and the music are at the highest level.

Richard Eyre’s excellent production for The Met, New York was first seen in 2010 when Bizet’s feverish and intoxicating score was conducted by Yannick Nezet-Seguin.

Don Jose (Robert Alagna), a bit of a mummy’s boy, should have stayed with Micaela (Barbara Frittoli), his nice bourgeois girlfriend, instead of deserting the army and turning smuggler in order to have sex w