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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

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Opera on 3

Music: Classical: Opera

Programme presenting rare and fascinating operatic performances

Programme presenting rare and fascinating performances and vividly communicating the immediacy of the live experience

Opera on 3: Live from the Met

Opera on 3: Live from the Met: Bizet's Carmen

Bizet's Carmen

16/01/2010

Live from the Met

BBC Radio 3 - Opera on 3, Live from the Met, Bizet's Carmen

Yannick Nezet-Seguin conducts Bizet's tale of gypsies, love, jealousy and murder.

From the Metropolitan Opera, New York, Yannick Nezet-Seguin conducts Elina Garanca and Roberto Alagna in Bizet's tale of gypsies, love, jealousy and murder in Seville.

Including the Toreador's Song and Habanera, Bizet's Carmen is packed full of some of the best known and instantly hummable tunes in the Classical canon. So it's easy to forget that the score was declared unplayable, and the story too scandalous and debauched for polite society at its 1875 premiere. 

What upset the prim Parisians was that the cast of low-life characters, including factory workers, gypsies and soldiers, is depicted without rose-tinted romanticism, the slaves of their torrid passions. Jealousy, crime and murder dominate in a Spanish setting that the French preferred to think of as perfumed and exotic. But posterity gave Bizet the last laugh and star singers have always been attracted to the roles, including Latvian mezzo-of-the-moment Elina Garanca in the title role, and the internationally renowned tenor Roberto Alagna as her murderous lover Don JosÃ©.

Presented by Margaret Juntwait with guest commentator Ira Siff. Including backstage interviews with artists during the interval.

Carmen: Elina Garanca (mezzo-soprano)
Don JosÃ©: Roberto Alagna (tenor)
MoralÃ¨s: Trevor Scheunemann (baritone)
MicaÃ«la: Barbara Frittoli (soprano)
Escamillo: Teddy Tahu Rhodes (baritone)
Dancaire: Earle Patriarco (tenor)
Remendado: Keith Jameson (tenor)
Zuniga: Keith Miller (bass)
Frasquita: Elizabeth Caballero (soprano)
MercÃ©dÃ¨s: Sandra Piques Eddy (soprano)
Yannick NÃ©zet-SÃ©guin (conductor)
Orchestra and Chorus of Metropolitan Orchestra.

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