Carmen Bizet Domingo

Plácido Domingo, one of the greatest opera singers of all time, and one of the few classical musicians who can genuinely be considered a household name, is 70 in January 2011.In 2010 he proved he is still going strong through incredible performances of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra at Covent Garden, his first performance as a baritone. He also appeared in the extremely popular live televised performances of Rigoletto. In his own words “If I rest I rust”!

The Vienna Carmen from 1978 is a sensational filmed document from the musical legacy of Carlos Kleiber: the meticulous conductor only ever conducted a highly selected repertoire, and among his very few audio and video recordings are only seven complete operas.

This movie version of Bizet's popular opera Carmen was filmed on location, conveying a kind of atmosphere, a sense of space, movement, and presence that's hard to achieve in a staged performance. It takes the action out of doors for many scenes, with the opening titles superimposed on the bloody conclusion of a bullfight. Elsewhere the changing of the guard, the crowd scenes, the dance number that opens Act 2, and the panoramic scenery of the smugglers' mountain hideout all benefit from the freedom granted by movie cameras.

After three decades of Carmen in opéra comique-style, each one offering its own brand of authenticity, here we are back in the 19th century with the old grand opera version, with the Guiraud recitatives, tacked on after Bizet’s death. This was the way Carmen was usually performed until the 1950s, when producers and scholars started to reconsider the original.