Chorus and Habanera from Carmen

[Kachureo62]

Shes a good Bach singer, but Carmen, God shes so boring, gestic is not enough......her voice is too cold for this role......Booooooooooooooooooo­oring! go back to Bach lady!

[kyorlando11]

BRAVO!!!!

[EliCole89]

amazing

[straumeeee]

Il choro bravo!!!!

[arpeggio1358]

She is so simply splendid...one of the finest mezzos of our time.

[LEONCODAJJ]

La música de la habanera de CARMEN no es de BIZET sino que es el tema "EL ARREGLITO" del español SABASTIAN YRADIER. Bizet dijo que creía que era un tema popular sin autor y lo metió con otra letra en su ópera.

[bookiecookie444]

sorry no matter how hard they try to be Carmen, lighter haired women just can't pull it off.

[dumboknot]

the guy grabs his frank an beans

[leitfie3579]

Anne Sofie is not an obvious Carmen - she's very Nordic, blue-eyed, fair-haired, not at all a Mediterrenean seductress. Still, she can sign absolutely anything almost to perfection, and she certainly throws herself into the role. Musically it's excellent and the by-play with the cigar is fun. I think she has plenty of flair - but perhaps not quite the kind of flair we've come to expect in this opera.

[Salar73]

@leitfie3579 to answer for Bizet. better said: Prosper Merimee: can't there be a carmen in any woman around the world?

[judeskiss]

yeah i have to agree. she doesn't come off as a Carmen. She doesn't have that flair.

[Ludlow889]

There's a lot to love in this production: gorgeous singing, great conducting, good acting, nice set design. My only complaint is that Ms. von Otter doesn't really look right for the role and makes Carmen a little too crude and vulgar, as if she were a clapped-out bar skank instead of a vivacious smoldering seductress. Still, thank you for posting these clips. I'm going to order the DVD to hear the rest of it.

[elizabethvonslussen]

@ Ludlow889 Just to say my opinion about your comment. I think von Otter and her director tried to cast away the (classic) stereo type image of Carmen as the Gypsy -. dark, menacing seductress. Look, von Otter did not even bother to dye her hair black, instead she retained her blonde hair, and the message is that - she is the Nordic Carmen. It is possible. Anyway, the singing is mgnificent.

[Ludlow889]

Yeah, McVicar's production is true to the spirit of the original source material (Mérimée's short story), and it's certainly a plausible and coherent interpretation. But by making Carmen a drab old cougar and Don Jose a creepy Norman Bates character, the story ceases to be tragic and becomes merely squalid. As I said, it's very plausible...but also somewhat less compelling and engaging.

Still, I like everything else about the production--the excellent singing, acting, staging, conducting.

[fj5a017]

Shes right! Bizet is not Wagner and Carmen is not Brunhilde. Light music can support a great drama. Il faut méditerraniser la musique.

[ugotitbabe000]

isn't the cig. chorus sweet?

[GeorgeMaxwellDuPre]

This si great! Just that we've got used to more rich voices as Carmen, Bumbry, Graves, Lamore etc. But we have to appreciate this one, because there's certainly nothing wrong with her Carmen.

[7NTM61Ic]

I don't really care about all that, as long as they still have that great music!

But I did like this take on the character.

[valvarez1080]

Que malo el sonido

poor sound

[MrGianantonio]

... grandemente camaleontica anne-sofie !!! emozione nordica per una gitana unica ...

[vincik80]

non immaginavo tanta disinvoltura scenica dalla von otter! brava!...

[g4thz]

... I can't decide if I really love her, or if I think she has kinda a big wobble. Very enjoyable to listen to (most of the time :/ )

[penguinsrock94]

I saw this at glynebourne last night with my school

FANTASTIC x

[Tryckey]

this is the first video of carmen i´ve ever seen in my life, in music class

[mandyzk]

Love it!!! Wish I could have a voice so deep as hers! *___*

Love Carmen!

[CelloVoice]

She is awesome...............

[shuunya]

Anne Sofie von Otter is just astounding... this is a fun and feisty Carmen with just the right amount of burn factor. There are too many cliched Carmens' out there - poor Carmen - she is destined to be typecasted as the vixen and femme fatale.

[battleoneliac]

Heck no! Carmen is meant to be a firey diva in every since of the word. If you listen to the third act, just before the bullfight---Free I was born, and free I will die!

[SayukiTogashi]

Hmmmm... She's a nice Carmen and I love her voice, but I think this Carmen is more into the crazy side than into the sexy... lol Just my opinion, of course. I don't mean she acts bad, but thought this Carmen too "revolted" to my taste. I like the Maria Ewing's performance the most. :)

[podkivanok]

Very fresh and clever performance! Anne Sofie is a true artist! I like her Carmen more then Carmens by other singers (on video; on cd my favorite is Victoria de los Angeles)

[muhammadcochon]

I love this !

also 'La boheme' (Puccini) & 'I puritani' (Bellini)

What am I saying, - I lov'e all !!!!

[ThPaw]

Eine Carmen die sehr beeindruckt. Perfektes Schauspiel.

[gazolinetom]

Of course they're not smoking, and the baby is not true...we call it THEATER!!!!

[geogchick]

They're not really smoking!!!! None of them actually exhale any smoke!

[MentorOfMinos]

Ok I'm sorry, but smoking and then trying to sing opera makes no fucking sense in my mind. 1.

[anneyre]

Very intersting :) A smoking and eating Carmen! And she's blonde! In spite of this, beautiful, beautiful performance! Bravo!

[Tommy211hick]

she is not blonde!!!more of an orange/red colour!!

[dan020350]

ha, a opera edited dvd.

[psikodennys]

blonde carmen:)lol

[Tommy211hick]

ginger Carmen????!! lol

[sisssyria]

david mc vicar you are the best

[martello79]

Well sung. And you can even hear this lied singer with this extremely dimmed orchestra

[notrichandnotfamous]

She is good at everything. Probably the most intelligent singer of her generation.

[Tommy211hick]

is this dvd? if so can u give me details please?

[Salar73]

is there a "best picture"?when will people stop to hunt for "the best"-(Carmen)-I like them all, everyone in it's own way-this one full of life,close to Miguenes-Domingo-great choreography!

[greaterben]

too much scooping on notes....i think it was rather poorly rendered!

[armida23dalila]

I love Anne Sophie Von Otter so much but I didn't like her Carmen I am sorry.But hr other performances is really awsome

[periodictable47]

Whoever's singing the lead looks like Belle Watling after a long, hard night of business at the whorehouse. Whoever was responsible for the costumes and hair in this production should be working there...

[Salar73]

your comment is pure houghtiness and ignorance. If you don't like it-ok, but don't make yourself the god of operas. The choreographic craft is just perfect, light, structure, distribution, movements and costumes. If you like it or not, you have to be fair!

[periodictable47]

Calm yourself. Nothing was said about any of these points but the costumes. The resemblance to a character in an American classic film is an accidental irony that isn't helpful. In the interest of logic, these get-ups also seem wrong. In the nineteenth century, in a Catholic country, no woman with any pretense to respectability (such as a woman who has a job rather than working in the sex trade) would be half-undressed in public.

[Salar73]

may be I didn't met the right tone, sorry for that, but every time-century has it's moral codices, and what was evtly. frivol in 19th isn't at all now. And I think the choreography met the taste of time now, to make understandable without going too far. It hit me a bit to have anne's appearence put close to Belle

[Salar73]

P.S. ..and in France as well as in Spain society accepts topless sunbathing, whereas I don't know how far they went in Mériméé's times, so there might be as well a difference in our both acceptance of these things (don't take it too earnest)

[MentorOfMinos]

Heh. We don't have topless anything in the states because everyone's too grossly obese for it to be any fun.

[prorokini]

@periodictable47

Read the book. These women work in a tobacco factory, rolling cigars in crowded, hot, damp rooms — in their underwear. This is probably the reason that makes them so interesting to men. It is highly improbable that these women dress elaborately and modestly in the style of the time for a 10 minutes open air break.

By the way, I love that the girls are smokingthey do in the book and in the original script.

[annao273]

This is pretty terrible.

[jeweladdict1972]

wonderful rendition! i also love jessye normans rendition!

[Salar73]

you must produce pure gold on toilet, do you?

[llum82]

is the best Carmen that I ever seen , is really amazing , I belive Carmen is like her , so fresh ... WOW , Every mezzo soprano who want to be a Carmen should seen this video

[CyberElektra]

Brilliant acting - I love her!

What happened to her Octavian with Barbara Bonney in the Presentation of the Rose? It was so beautiful, and now it's been removed from Youtube. I'm so upset, I've been crying for days. I'll have to buy it now.

[Elisabetta611]

It may just be me....but IMO she is way too vulgar. Carmen's a tease and a flirt but not a shameless wanton. Julia Migenes was sexy without selling out in this song.

[creidhe]

awesome carmen...unlike any other..

[mondo632]

This is so much better than the older versions of those "great" singers who sang it like wagner ! This is Bizet, this is fun it is an operetta !

And what is even better is the way she acts... She is a real Carmen !

Rien a prouver sur le chant !

[Orbazzano]

una delle peggiori carmen che abbiano mai calcato le scene...vicino alle varie Bumbry, Simionato, Cossotto, Verret, Berganza ecc. ecc. non sembra altro che una bambinetta che vuole provare a cantare...

[iTubeVlc]

What a perfect diction... on comprend vraiment TOUT!

[SissiPearl]

The cigar is precious...

Singing while "smoking"? That is just priceless!

Gotta love Anne Sofie. She's definitely one of my favorite Carmens!

[andreasscholl]

A real Carmen of flesh and blood...

She makes a WOMAN of her!

In the end you're sorry that she dies.