Opera on 3

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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: Bizet's Carmen: Glyndebourne Greats

Bizet's Carmen: Glyndebourne Greats

BBC Radio 3 - Opera on 3, Bizet's Carmen: Glyndebourne Greats

Anne Sofie von Otter stars as the wild gypsy who pays the ultimate price for her freedom.

Anne Sofie von Otter stars as the wild gypsy who pays the ultimate price for her freedom: Bizet's masterpiece, Carmen, in this 2002 performance from the Glyndebourne Opera Festival.

Carmen shocked its original audience. Possibly it was the rawness of the passion and sexual energy that simmers and boils over in this raw drama about freedom, lust and death. From the moment Don Jose picks up the rose thrown at him by the wild cat who works in the local cigarette factory we know we're in for an evening of trouble. It never goes well when a sensitive mummy's boy from the country gets entangled with a feral, death-obsessed femme fatale.

In the second opera in this short season of great performances from the Glyndebourne Opera Festival, this is an opportunity to hear Bizet's masterpiece in a 2002 production that swept away the cliches of a piece that all too often conjures up the fringed shawls and hooped earrings of picture postcard Spain. David McVicar's claustrophobic staging was many miles from sunny Seville, and Anne Sofie von Otter brought a Lieder singer's sensibility to the role of Carmen

Presented by Martin Handley

Carmen.....Anne Sofie von Otter (Mezzo-soprano) 
Don Jose.....Marcus Haddock (Tenor) 
Escamillo.....Laurent Naouri (Baritone) 
Micaela.....Lisa Milne (Soprano) 
Frasquita.....Mary Hegarty (Soprano) 
Morales.....Hans Voschezang (Bass) 
Zuniga.....Jonathan Best (Bass) 
Mercedes.....Christine Rice (Mezzo-soprano) 
Le Dancaire.....Quentin Hayes (Bass) 
Lilas Pastia.....Anthony Wise (Speaker) 
Le Remendado.....Colin Judson (Tenor) 
Le Guide.....Franck Lopez (Speaker)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Philippe Jordan (Conductor)

*1830 Act 1

*1925 Act 2

*2030 Acts 3 and 4

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