Bizet - Carmen - Leonard Bernstein (3LPs, Box set)
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€101,15
Regular price
Rarity vinyl cannot be exchanged as they are sole copies of sold-out editions.
If damaged they would be refunded after return but not exchanged.
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Rarity - Sealed
Vocals :
- Carmen : Marilyn Horne
- Don José : James McCracken
- Escamillo : Tom Krause
- Micaëla : Adriana Maliponte
- Dancaire, Lillas Pastia : Russell Christopher
- Frasquita : Colette Boky
- Mercédès : Marcia Baldwin
- Moralès : Raymond Gibbs
- Remendado : Andrea Velis
- Zuniga : Donald Gramm
- Metropolitan Opera Chorus
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra
Conductor – Leonard Bernstein
3 LPs, hinged box made of thick cardboard and includes a 4-color, 12” x 12”, 70-page perfect bound book featuring the full libretto; profiles of the conductor and performers; and many photos
Original analog Master tape : YES
Heavy Press : 180g
Record color : black
Speed : 33 RPM
Size : 12'’
Stereo
Record Press : Pallas GmbH in Germany
Label : Speakers Corner
Original Label : Deutsche Grammophon
Recorded 22 September to 13 October 1972 at the Metropolitan Opera, New York City
Engineered by Günter Hermanns
Produced by Thomas W. Mowrey
Originally released in 1973
Reissued in 2014
Tracks:
Side A : Act 1 (Part 1)
Side B : Act 1 (Part 2)
Side C : Act 2 (Part 1)
Side D : Act 2 (Part 2) & Act 3 (Part 1)
Side E : Act 3 (Part 2)
Side F : Act 4
Awards:
TAS Super LP List! Special Merit: Operas and Oratorios
Reviews :
"The superb cast, headed by Mariln Home at her most glorious-how nice to have a Carmne with a voice of real womanly depth and body... Dynamic, vivid, and spectacular, fully worthy of a great performance that belongs in every serious opera collection." - Paul Seydor, The Absolute Sound, October 2015
« Even by their normally excellent standards, Speakers Corner have done a superb job on this Carmen. Surfaces are ghostly quiet, the outer box is beautifully solid and produced with precision, but it’s the booklet that’s most impressive. It would have been easy to cut corners here, but it is reproduced in all its original glory: heavy stock, gatefolds and beautifully reproduced photography complement the crystal-clear typography in a model example of what makes a perfect libretto.
This Carmen is both a perfect introduction to the piece and opera as a whole, and it is a fascinating alternative for those more familiar with other versions. Exposed to its individuality and the integrity of its artistic vision, you find yourself calling other readings into question, and this is a recording that should be welcomed and enjoyed by opera debutantes and hardened aficionados with a library full of performances alike. Somewhat to my surprise but also considerable pleasure, Bernstein, Horne et al. have quickly become firm favorites in a house that already contains more competing copies of Carmen than it probably should. » The Audio Beat, Roy Gregory, February 22, 2015
« There are so many tales surrounding Leonard Bernstein’s Carmen that it is hard to believe we still think of it as Leonard Bernstein’s Carmen. This Met production, which opened the season in September 1972, was to have been directed by Göran Gentele, who had just succeeded Rudolf Bing as the company’s general manager — but Gentele was killed in a car accident in July. (His concept was ultimately realized by Bodo Igesz.) The studio recording had its own challenges, including the inability of Deutsche Grammophon to reach an agreement with the Met’s chorus, who (reasonably enough) wanted to be paid the same rate as the Met’s orchestra. They were replaced by the Thomas Pyle Chorus, under the invented name Manhattan Opera Chorus. The whole saga was enough to fill a book, The Carmen Chronicle, by Harvey E. Phillips.
Bernstein conducted this production of Carmen only six times in the opera house, and never for a Saturday matinée radio broadcast, but he certainly put his stamp on the recording. His interpretation is remembered as wayward, but to revisit it is to discover that he chose only a few big moments for self-aggrandizement. One comes at the very start, when the allegro giocoso of the Prelude is played at high-school-band rehearsal tempo, neither allegro nor giocoso. But in Bernstein’s defense, this music is then played faster each time it recurs in the opera, making an appropriately tawdry and frenzied offstage accompaniment to the life-or-death finale. The toreador song is achingly flat-footed (it might have worked with an Escamillo other than the amiable Tom Krause, who is more a pleasant hometown outfielder than a dashing daredevil) and later becomes excruciating in its ponderousness in Act IV. The quintet is far too fast for any sense of conspiracy, or playfulness, or persuasion. But it is a surprise to rediscover how little else about the performance is self-referential. The tempo for the “Quant au douanier” ensemble is brilliantly apt (although it turns into Joplin’s “A Real Slow Drag” near the end), and Bernstein’s Act IV yields to no other in sheer excitement. For most of Act III one hardly thinks about the conducting at all, which would have distressed the conductor.
All in all, this is the rare performance that takes Carmen seriously as a music drama rather than a tourist attraction. » WILLIAM R. BRAUN, Opera News
Ratings :
Discogs: 4,48 / 5 , The Absolute Sound : 4/5 Music, 4/5 Sonics , The Audio Beat : Music 5/5 , Sound 4/5