Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Carmen
    Carmen
    Carmen
    Audiobook1 hour

    Carmen

    Written by Thomson Smillie

    Narrated by David Timson

    5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Carmen is among the most popular operas for all the obvious reasons: great characters, a gripping story and fabulous music. But what sets it on a pinnacle is an amazing combination of three factors: a sizzling gipsy heroine (one of the most psychologically complex and compelling characters in all theatre), great atmosphere (Spain, hot sun, the bull-ring) and the prodigality of melodic invention – one great tune after another, at least a dozen of which are the staples of Madison Avenue and the animated cartoon. Like a surprising number of opera-house staples, Carmen was not a success at its first performance. In fact, it is likely that its failure contributed to the early death of the composer. But as Thomson Smillie shows in his accessible introduction, the emotionally driven nature of its heroine and her admirers, Don José and Escamillo, makes Carmen unforgettable. As always in the Opera Explained series, the music itself plays an integral role.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNaxos Audiobooks
    Release dateMar 1, 2002
    ISBN9781843793076
    Carmen

    More audiobooks from Thomson Smillie

    Related to Carmen

    Related audiobooks

    Music For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Looking For Women's Music At The Symphony? Good Luck!

      May 5, 2017

      Recent surveys show that less than 2 percent of music performed by American orchestras is by women composers. This year's Pulitzer Prize winner, Du Yun, speaks out on diversity in the concert hall.

      7 min read

    • Article

      Music

      Jul 26, 2023

      Music
      3 min read

    • Article

      Too Darn Hot

      Feb 24, 2022

      EVEN IN THE CAPACIOUS ANNALS of France v. Music, our neighbours’ reaction to Georges Bizet’s Carmen in 1875 was a doozy. A first-nighter which ended with everyone hating everything resulted in history’s arsiest reviews, a curtailed run and the compos

      3 min read

    • Article

      Opera At Home

      Sep 11, 2020

      THAÏS MASSENET Chandos CHSA 5258(2) Massenet’s 1894 opera about the Egyptian courtesan, Thaïs, who is converted to Christianity by the monk Athanaël, has a storied recording history. Three of the earliest feature great French sopranos of the 1950s: G

      15 min read

    • Article

      This Offenbach ‘Trip’ Is A Topsy-turvy Spectacular

      Jul 12, 2022

      Violette Polchi, Sheva Tehoval, Matthieu Lécroart, Pierre Derhet, Raphaël Brémard; Chœur et Orchestre National Montpellier Occitanie/Pierre Dumoussaud Bru Zane BZ1048 151:02 mins (2 discs) If Offenbach’s fifth and final Fairy Opera has gathered dust

      9 min read

    • Article

      Opera At Home

      Jun 15, 2021

      SCHREKER OEHMS OC 980 OPER FRANKFURT IS ARGUABLY the “right” company to produce this Der ferne Klang recording, because Austrian composer Franz Schreker (1878-1934) had a special connection with this opera house. It was here that he scored his first

      15 min read

    • Article

      Opera At Home

      Jun 17, 2019

      CDs ADAMS Nonesuch 7559793107 Doctor Atomic, John Adams’ 2005 opera about the development of the first atomic weapon, makes a powerful CD debut with this issue. This is helped by that fact the piece is almost more oratorio than opera with very little

      9 min read

    • Article

      Chaminade la Lisonjera

      Jul 22, 2022

      Chaminade la Lisonjera
      7 min read

    • Article

      Chaminade la Lisonjera

      Jul 22, 2022

      Chaminade la Lisonjera
      7 min read

    • Article

      Opera in Review

      Feb 9, 2018

      Opera in Review
      47 min read

    • Article

      Hidden treasures

      Jun 13, 2023

      Between 2001 and ’22, I was tasked with finding a ‘rarely performed’ opera on an annual basis for University College Opera’s yearly production in March. The invitation to take down a piece from the shelf that few, if any, had ever seen, then putting

      6 min read

    • Article

      Opera

      Dec 23, 2020

      Opera
      8 min read

    • Article

      Richard Osborne

      Jul 27, 2022

      Richard Osborne
      3 min read

    • Article

      Losing The Plot

      Mar 25, 2021

      OF ALL THE HORDES who have a beef with opera, the straight-theatre crowd are by far the sniffiest. Naturally enough, their objections start with the peculiar singing, and pretty soon it’s all Johnson’s “exotic and irrational Entertainment” and the la

      3 min read

    • Article

      Opera At Home

      Jul 4, 2022

      ANDRÉ CAMPRA IS REMEM bered as the leading French opera composer in the era between Lully and Rameau. More than a dozen of his stage works survive, yet this charming opéra-ballet, first mounted in 1700 before a group of students at the Collège de Lou

      11 min read

    • Article

      Opera

      Oct 3, 2023

      Berta Joncus enjoys Alfredo Bernardini’s slimmed-down La Corona d’Arianna La Corona d’Arianna Carlotta Colombo; Marianne Beate Kielland et al; Arnold Schoenberg Choir; Zefiro/Alfredo Bernardini Arcana A548 68:15 mins Johann Joseph Fux’s La Corona d’A

      10 min read

    • Article

      Spring To Life

      Mar 30, 2023

      ● EVEN BY THE OLYMPIAN standards of the Covent Garden stalls, it was a top effort: the old dude beside me was snoring happily within five minutes of curtain-up on Rusalka. Actually at 200 quid a pop it’s not such a bad deal: for a start, you miss the

      3 min read

    • Article

      Opera

      Oct 29, 2020

      Opera
      8 min read

    • Article

      Opera In Review

      Jul 4, 2022

      Opera In Review
      15 min read

    • Article

      Opera

      Dec 22, 2022

      Anthony Davis’s 1985 opera X is brought vividly back to life by this talented ensemble, says George Hall X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X Davóne Tines, Whitney Morrison, Ronnita Miller, Victor Robertson; Boston Modern Opera Project; Odyssey Opera/G

      5 min read

    • Article

      Enduring Myths

      Oct 29, 2020

      Jeremy Pound delves into the world of classical poetry to explore how Ovid’s Metamorphoses has inspired a wealth of composers over the centuries In 8 AD, the poet Ovid found himself in a bad place. Quite literally. Exiled by Emperor Augustus, he was

      5 min read

    • Article

      Opera

      Oct 31, 2023

      Alexandra Wilson enjoys Jonathan Tetelman’s distinctive take on classic arias Arias from Il Tabarro, Manon Lescaut, La bohème, Madam Butterfly etc Jonathan Tetelman (tenor); Prague Philharmonia/Carlo Rizzi DG 486 4683 51:09 mins This album, released

      5 min read

    • Article

      Going For A Song

      Feb 23, 2023

      THOSE WHO THINK THE opera gang spends its time lounging about in some scented clubland Elysium nibbling on nightingales’ tongues and sipping ambrosia from chorus girls’ slippers will be sad to learn that — myself and a handpicked cohort of acolytes a

      3 min read

    • Article

      Going For A Song

      Feb 23, 2023

      THOSE WHO THINK THE opera gang spends its time lounging about in some scented clubland Elysium nibbling on nightingales’ tongues and sipping ambrosia from chorus girls’ slippers will be sad to learn that — myself and a handpicked cohort of acolytes a

      3 min read

    • Article

      Le Nozze Di Figaro

      Mar 21, 2022

      Le Nozze Di Figaro
      3 min read

    • Article

      Vive La Révolution!

      May 16, 2023

      It is generally accepted that French composers of the 19th and early 20th centuries were not by nature writers of symphonies and concertos. Perhaps the symphonies by Gounod and Saint-Saëns and the delightful early one by Bizet may be classed as excep

      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Carmen

    5/5

    7 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words