Showing posts with label Georges Bizet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Georges Bizet. Show all posts

Thursday, August 22, 2024

Dave's Music Hall of Fame: Album Inductees (August 2024)

The Top Operas

Originally posted 8/22/2024.

January 22, 2019 marked the 10-year anniversary of the DMDB blog. To honor that, Dave’s Music Database announced its own Hall of Fame. This month marks the 23rd group of album inductees. These are the top 10 operas of all time (see the full list here). Four were already inducted in previously classes: George & Ira Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) and Don Giovanni, and Richard Wagner’s The Ring Cycle (Der Ring Des Nibelungen).

See the full list of album inductees here.

Georges Bizet Carmen (1874)

Inducted August 2024 as “The Top Operas.”

Carmen is “one of the most popular and frequently performed operas in the classical canon.” WK Bizet based the four-act opera on a Prosper Mérimée novella of the same name with a libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. WK The music “has since been widely acclaimed for brilliance of melody, harmony, atmosphere, and orchestration, and for the skill with which Bizet musically represented the emotions and suffering of his characters.” WK Read more.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Die Zauberflote (The Magic Flute) (1791)

Inducted August 2024 as “The Top Operas.”

The Magic Flute is a two-act opera with both singing and spoken dialogue, or libretto, by Emanuel Schikaneder. Jakob August Libeskind’s story “Lulu or the Magic Flute” is considered a possible source for Schikaneder’s libretto. AM “Although overwhelmed by many adversities, Mozart found great joy in working” AM on the opera. It premiered at Schikaneder’s Theater auf der Wieden in the suburbs of Vienna on September 30, 1791. WK Read more.

Giacomo Puccini La Bohème (The Bohemian Life) (1896)

Inducted August 2024 as “The Top Operas.”

Puccini’s opera was inspired by the “nineteenth century cultural fad of Bohemianism” AM and the “theme of Parisian starving artists.” AM While the opera world sometimes suffered “recklessly wordy narratives in search of musical anchor and gorgeous music lacking plot lines” Puccini “achieved a very happy medium” TM with La Bohème. His “musical decisions were informed by the necessities of the drama” TM and he offers “genuinely memorable melodies, songs that would be deeply affecting independent of any narrative.” TM Read more.

Giacomo Puccini Tosca (1900)

Inducted August 2024 as “The Top Operas.”

When Puccini started writing Tosca, he’d already composed four operas, including the popular La Bohème. In “a marked change from the late Romantic sentimentality” AM of that work, Tosca was an exploration of “the dark side of human emotion.” AM It “premiered in 1900 at Rome’s Teatro Costanzi to a temperate critical reception.” AM Read more.

Gioacchino Rossini Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) (1816)

Inducted August 2024 as “The Top Operas.”

The Barber of Seville “has proven to be one of the greatest masterpieces of comedy within music.” WK It is “widely considered the greatest of comic operas.” AM It is an opera buffa in two acts. The Italian libretto, by Cesare Sterbini, was based on the 1775 French Comedy Le Barbier de Séville by Pierre Beaumarchais. WK in which nobility were depicted as buffoons dependent on their servants. AM “After two hundred years, it remains a popular work.” WK Read more.

Richard Wagner Tristan Und Isolde (1859)

Inducted August 2024 as “The Top Operas.”

“Wagner once explained it was his need to ‘vent his feelings musically’ that led him to compose Tristan und Isolde.” TM He was inspired by his affair with Mathilde Wesendonck, his patron’s wife to whom he wrote poems which became the basis for five of the opera’s songs. JH The opera is largely based on Tristan, a 12th-century romance by Gottfried von Strassburg. It premiered on June 10, 1865 at the Königliches Hof- und Nationaltheater in Munich with Hans von Bülow as the conductor. WK Read more.
at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,

Monday, March 3, 1975

Today in Music (1875): Bizet's Carmen premiered

Carmen

Georges Bizet (composer)

Composed: 1873-74

First Performed: March 3, 1875

Peak: 18 UK

Sales (in millions): --

Genre: classical > opera

Parts/Movements:

  1. No. 1, Prelude [Les Toréadors]

    Act I:

  2. No. 2, "Sur la place, chacun passe" (Soldats)
  3. No. 3, "Avec la garde montante" (Chorus des Gamins)
  4. No. 4a, "La Cloche a sonne, nous des ouvrieres" (Jeunes Gens) (Chrous of Cigarette Girls)
  5. No. 4b, "La voila! Voila la Carmencita!" (Tous)
  6. No. 5, "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle" (Habanera) (Carmen w/Chorus)
  7. No. 6, "Carmen! sur tes pas" (Les Jeunes Gens)
  8. No. 7, "Parle-moi de ma mere!" (Don Jose)
  9. No. 8, "Au secours!" (Chorus)
  10. No. 9, "Voyons, brigadier"
  11. No. 10a, "Pres des remparts de Seville" (Seguidilla) (Carmen)
  12. No. 10b, "Voice l'orde" (Zuniga)

    Act II:

  13. No. 11a, "Entr'acte" [Les Dragons d'Alcala]
  14. No. 11b, "Les tringles des sistres tintaient" (Gypsy Song) (Carmen)
  15. No. 11c, "Danse bohemienne"
  16. No. 11d, "Vous avez quelque chose"
  17. No. 12a, "Vivat, vivat le torero!" (Chorus)
  18. No. 12b, "Votre toast... je peux vous le rendre" (Toreador's Song) (Escamillo)
  19. No. 13, "Nous avons en tete une affaire!" (Dancaire)
  20. No. 14, "Halte-la! Qui va la?" (Don Jose)
  21. No. 15a, "Je vais danser en votre honneur" (Carmen)
  22. No. 15b, "Au quartier! pour l'appel" (Carmen)
  23. No. 15c, "La fleur que tu ma'vais jetee" (Flower Song) (Don Jose)
  24. No. 15d, "Non! tu ne ma'aimes pas!" (Carmen)
  25. No. 16, "Hola! Carmen!" (Zuniga)

    Act III:

  26. No. 17a, "Entr'acte" [Intermezzo]
  27. No. 17b, "Ecoute, compagnon, ecoute" (Les Contrebandiers)
  28. No. 17c, "Notre metier est bon" (Les Six)
  29. No. 18a, "Melons! Coupons!" (Card Scene) (Mercedes, Frasquita)
  30. No. 18b, "Voyons, que f'essaie a mon tour"
  31. No. 18c, "En vain, pour eviter les reponses ameres" (Carmen)
  32. No. 19, "Quant au douanier c'est notre affaire" (Carmen, Mercedes, Frasquita et Femmes)
  33. No. 20, "Je dis que rien ne m'epouvante" (Micaela's Aria) [Nocturne]
  34. No. 21, "Je suis Escamillo" (Escamillo)

    Act IV:

  35. No. 22a, "Entr'acte" [Aragonaise]
  36. No. 22b, "A deux cuartos!" (Chorus)
  37. No. 23, "Les voici, voici la quadrille" (Chorus) [Les Toréadors]
  38. No. 24, "Si tu m'aimes, Carmen" (Escamillo)
  39. No. 25, "C'est toi!", Final Duet (Carmen, Don Jose)

Average Duration: 148:50

Rating:

4.079 out of 5.00 (average of 7 ratings)

Quotable:

A “cornerstone item in any opera collection” – AllMusic.com

Awards:

(Click on award to learn more).

About the Work:

Carmen is “one of the most popular and frequently performed operas in the classical canon.” WK Bizet based the four-act opera on a Prosper Mérimée novella of the same name with a libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. WK The four-act opera is “written in the genre of opéra comique with musical numbers separated by dialogue.” WK “The music of Carmen has since been widely acclaimed for brilliance of melody, harmony, atmosphere, and orchestration, and for the skill with which Bizet musically represented the emotions and suffering of his characters.” WK

The story, set in southern Spain, documents “the downfall of Don José, a naïve soldier who is seduced by…the fiery gypsy Carmen. José abandons his childhood sweetheart and deserts…yet loses Carmen…to the glamorous matador Escamillo, after which José kills her in a jealous rage.” WK

Initially, Parisian critics condemned the opera “for its overt sexuality and graphic final scene.” WK However, “the depictions of proletarian life, immorality, and lawlessness, and the tragic death of the main character on stage, broke new ground in French opera and were highly controversial.” WK Eventually, it “intrigued a number of sophisticated minds and ultimately reached the public in a way that perhaps no other opera has.” AM “It is ironic that Bizet composed one of music’s most evocative landscapes of Spain without ever having been there.” AM

It was first performed on March 3, 1875 at the Opéra-Comique in Paris. WK Bizet sadly died after the 33rd performance, missing the international acclaim it would achieve in the next decade.

Reviews:

Related DMDB Links:

Last updated 2/24/2026.

at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)