English National Opera Guides are ideal companions to the opera. They provide stimulating introductory articles together with the complete text of each opera in English and the original. Bizet describes himself as 'pagan' and Carmen has a savage Mediterranean beauty quite unique in music. The essays included in this Guide suggest some reasons for its legendary theatrical appeal. Martin Cooper describes the traditional mixture of spoken words and song that stimulated Bizet to exclaim 'I want to revolutionise opera-comique!': the translators show the ingenious and inspired ways in which he set about it. Lesley Wright analyses the score and Michael Rabaud shows the uncanny appropriateness of Nietzche's support for Bizet in his famous attacks on the decadence of Wagner. This is the first time that the complete text of the verses that Bizet set to music and the full dialogue (much of it especially translated for this Opera Guide), have ever been published.
- ISBN10 1515103455
- ISBN13 9781515103455
- Publish Date 21 July 2015 (first published November 1965)
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 4 August 2015
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Createspace
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 64
- Language English