Review (PDF) Carmen In Full Score (Dover Music Scores)
When he first heard Carmen, Tchaikovsky enthusiastically predicted it would become the world's most popular opera. Wagner, too, was an admirer of this dramatic masterpiece, and Brahms claimed to have seen it 29 times. At its premiere in Paris in 1873, however, Carmen did not succeed with the public or the critics. Indeed, it created a scandal. But in time, as Tchaikovsky foresaw, it would become the favorite opera of audiences worldwide. And in over a century Carmen has never relinquished its position as one of the most performed and recorded operas in the repertoire.Conceived and composed as an opèra comique (a genre it completely transformed), Carmen was converted after Bizet's tragic early death to grand opera with the addition of recitatives composed by Ernest Guiraud. This superbly produced full-score edition replicates this grand-opera version, the one most commonly produced on operatic stages today.Accustomed to the light and sentimental subjects and conventions of opèra comique, Bizet's public and critics were at first horrified by Carmen's lurid plot and characters. Critics pronounced its story, dominated by sexual passion and jealousy, too "obscene" for the stage, called for the mezzo-soprano portraying Carmen to be hauled into court, and disparaged the music as unoriginal and undramatic. Soon, fortunately, this hysteria subsided, further productions were mounted, and the world embraced this towering music drama with its compelling flesh-and-blood characters and the tragic fate their unruly passions make inevitable.Musicians and music lovers alike will find in this inexpensive yet well-made edition an ideal way to study and savor the unique merits of Carmen, whose central struggle is so movingly expressed and advanced in the rich and dramatic themes and textures of the music itself, not merely in the libretto. With this score in hand, they can enjoy both live and recorded performances of what is perhaps the best-known and most beloved opera in the world.
Series: Dover Music Scores
Paperback: 574 pages
Publisher: Dover Publications (February 1, 1989)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0486258203
ISBN-13: 978-0486258201
Product Dimensions: 9 x 1.2 x 12 inches
Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #820,103 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #8 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Sheet Music & Scores > Composers > Bizet #172 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Sheet Music & Scores > Forms & Genres > Ballet & Dance #272 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Sheet Music & Scores > Historical Period > Late Romantic
This score meets expectations perfectly. It has an easy to read lyrics in French, with large, clear staves so that the conductor can easily read his/her score. I would recommend buying this if you love Carmen as I do, but just disregard the tacky cover.
For Carmen, Dover chose to reprint the Peters edition, a good, reliable edition, with a German translation, and the recits written for the Paris Opera premiere. Anyone who knows Carmen knows that Bizet originally intended it for the Opera Comique, and, therefore, it was intended to be performed with dialogue in between the set numbers. Personally, I feel that the score works better in this Opera Comique, number/dialogue style, than with these rather clunky recits. Some would disagree, saying that dialogue doesn't carry well in an Opera house. Well, if that's true, why do Mozart's great Singspiels still hold the stage, dialogue and all? Nonetheless, a good Carmen score should contain the recits in case one wants to use them. One can, after all, simply skip past them. However, the best score should also contain the dialogue. This one does not. Again, Dover chose to reprint the Peters edition. Peters was a publisher noted for his scholarship, so from that point of view, it's quite reliable. It's also large enough to conduct from. And, as usual, the book itself is nearly indestructable. This edition, for any of Carmen's lovers, is like a rose on the ground.
Dover once again gives us an affordable cleanly produced score at a cheap price. Get it before it goes the route of FAUST and gets deleted from the catalogue.
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