Everyone in the world knows Georges Bizet's Carmen, everyone in the world has listened to, even without knowing, at least a couple of tunes from this opera, mashed into commercials, thrown in everywhere a pinch of verve and energy was needed.
If I say "Près des ramparts de Seville" - "Near the ramparts in Seville" (also known as "seguidilla", from the name of the dance), or "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle" - "Love is an untamable bird" ("habanera"), Escamillo's song "Votre toast, je peux vous le rendre" - "I can return your toast", whose much-heard refrain is "Toreador, en garde" etc.
That's a pity, because I don't think those are the best parts of the opera, musically speaking. The true spirit of the work is in light and brilliant choruses like the gamin chorus in the beginning ("avec la garde montante" - "With the incoming guard/we arrive - here we are"), the one that starts the last act ("À dos cuartos") and dark, gloomy arias like the "cards' aria" sung by Carmen when she knows from the cards that she will die soon.
The maximum brilliancy is achieved by Bizet in one of the most beautiful, important and still less known of the opera: the quintet from the second act "Nous avons en tête un affaire" - "We have a business in mind", which flows as swift as the chromatic scales of the woodwinds that start it.
The text is amusing, albeit a little anti-feminist ("when it comes to deceiving, robbing and cheating/it's always good/to have women with you"!), it's a good pause in the action, but it also takes the action on - when Carmen comes in and says that she has other things to do and can't go with them (the smugglers) this time...
It is a really difficult piece, in addition to: rarely I've heard it executed as it should be, mainly because of tempo inaccuracies.
Even if I think she was not fit for the role, Maria Callas once more gives us a lesson on how it should be done. She was a soprano-mezzosoprano who could also sing in roles like Carmen - a real manlike vixen - which are more suitable for singers with a deeper voice, like Agnes Baltsa.
She couldn't do the rest? she did the music. And her recording with Georges Prêtre is what you would expect from her - at least in this piece: perfection.
I knew Prêtre is a really precise conductor, especially when it comes to tempo and phrasing, but here the whole thing flows lubricated and smooth, like it costed no effort nor to the singers, nor to the orchestra.
Listen to it.