Music box CARMEN-TOREADOR

Music box CARMEN-TOREADOR

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https://youtu.be/IHKlyLtZQ-g

Carmen Suites (Chanson du Toreador) - Georges Bizet

Song of the Bullfighter

"Carme n" (FR. Carmen) is an Opera by Georges Bizet in four acts, which premiered on 3 March 1875 at the opéra-Comique in Paris». The Opera's librettists Henri Meilhac and Ludovic halévy, the plot is created based on the eponymous novel by prosper mérimée.

The Opera is set in Spain in the first half of the XIX century. The main characters are the Gypsy Carmen, Sergeant don Jose, bullfighter Escamillo, and Jose's fiancee Michaela. In addition to them, the Opera presents a number of minor characters: officers, soldiers, Gypsies, smugglers, bullfighters, the owner of a tavern and the common people.

By the time of Georges Bizet's death on June 3, 1875, the Opera had been performed 33 times, the last performances were held at low occupancy, but then the excitement increased. Soon the play was removed from the repertoire of the "Opera-Comique"; it was returned only in 1883, significantly changed, for which the Director of the theater was strongly criticized and subsequently returned the original plot. In the future, "Carmen" was staged in two versions-the original "spoken" and "recitative", which after Bizet's death was created by Ernest Giro and which in the future became very popular. At that time, the play was already shown in many European cities, including St. Petersburg.

Pyotr Tchaikovsky, who saw the first performances of "Carmen", wrote that Bizet's Opera is "in the full sense a masterpiece, that is, one of the few things that are destined to reflect the musical aspirations of an entire epoch in the strongest degree. In ten years ' time, Carmen will be the most popular Opera in the world...». In the future, "Carmen" became world-famous.