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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A very grand Carmen, June 11, 2004
This review is from: Bizet: Carmen / Price, Corelli, Merrill, Freni; Karajan (Audio CD)
This Carmen probably has the most distinguished cast on records -- Leontyne Price, Franco Corelli, Mirella Freni, and Robert Merrill, plus the conducting of Herbert von Karajan. Everyone is in good voice, and the Vienna Philharmonic plays beautifully, attending lovingly to the many fine details of Bizet's score. All in all, it's a very grand affair. And that's the problem. Carmen is not Lohengrin or Don Carlo; it's really an intimate drama about simple people, soldiers, gypsies, peasants, and smugglers. That intimacy doesn't survive the star treatment and deliberateness of von Karajan's approach. Much of the drama does come through, since the leads were all highly accomplished in their art, but I am never able to shake the feeling that I'm listening to superstars act like Merimee's characters. This is not a bad Carmen by any means; it's simply a bit off the mark.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Must-Have Carmen, April 23, 2000
This review is from: Bizet: Carmen / Price, Corelli, Merrill, Freni; Karajan (Audio CD)
This is a must have carmen by all means! I'll start with the best reason to run and buy it - there's no Michaela like Freni's (who by the way named her daughter Michaela...) She's the perfect Michaela with sweet soaring notes. I've heard many Michaelas, none gets anywherwe near. Freni simply makes you want to listen to Michaela's parts over and over again, and her duet with Don Jose "Parle moi de ma mere" - is a real treat to the ear and soul. Michaela's aria - shear pleasure. Price, though not a Mezzo-soprano, gives a sexy seductive Carmen who sends shivers down one's spine, with a voice that's thick, dark, rich and a little hoarse, in a way most becoming the role. Corelli is an electrifying Don Jose, and in the last scene every note of his goes down to your heart. Merill - an exallent Escamilio. The orchestration is simply so right and every note is briliant and clean. The secondary roles are sung wonderfully as well. For all Carmen lovers or ones getting to know it - this is a must have. For those who want to get to know opera, this is the ideal opera to start.
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26 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Lots of Fun, March 3, 2000
This review is from: Bizet: Carmen / Price, Corelli, Merrill, Freni; Karajan (Audio CD)
This recording of "Carmen" isn't very subtle, or very elegant, or very idiomatic. The French pronunciation of the four principals is often unbelievably atrocious. Bizet probably wouldn't have recognized this as the tragicomic opera-comique that he wrote. But boy, is this recording ever entertaining! The principals may have terrible French, but they also have glorious voices, and that, combined with the playing of the Vienna Philharmonic, makes the recording absolutely gorgeous as sheer sound. Price, who never sang Carmen on the stage, here plays the part as a sort of cousin to Bess from PORGY AND BESS, and she sort of makes it work. Corelli's French is the worst of all, but his Don Jose sounds truly tortured and, in the final act, fearsome in a way that more stylish tenors can't match. The young Freni sounds magnificent in the thankless role of Micaela, and the ubiquitous Robert Merrill sounds, as usual, like a gorgeous-voiced All-American lunkhead. Karajan is Karajan: more concerned with beautiful sound than with anything else. Beautiful sound is what he gets, and the recording, produced by the great John Culshaw, is just plain fun to listen to. A guilty pleasure, perhaps, but a pleasure nonetheless.
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