Kostas Smoriginas

Magdalena Kožená, Jonas Kaufmann, Genia Kühmeier, Kostas Smoriginas, Berliner Philharmoniker, Sir Simon Rattle – Bizet: Carmen (2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 02:29:40 minutes | 1,32 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Warner Classics

Carmen was premiered at the (second) Salle Favart, the home of Paris’ Opéra-Comique – then as now in the Place Boieldieu – on 3 March 1875. Georges Bizet, its composer, died of a heart attack exactly three months later, on 3 June, aged 36. In his short life he had written, in whole or in part, more than a dozen works for the lyric stage, ranging from one-act operettas to five-act grand operas: and had contemplated at least a dozen more. He was exceptionally well connected in the tight-knit and faintly incestuous musical world of mid-19th-century Paris, and almost universally well-liked. Over 4,000 mourners attended his funeral in the Église de la Sainte-Trinité – the location of Rossini’s in 1868 and Berlioz’s the year after – including his former mentor Charles Gounod, so emotionally overwrought that he was unable to finish the eulogy at the subsequent interment at Père Lachaise. That night – 5 June – Carmen was given its 33rd performance at the Salle Favart; and this time the press that had greeted the work’s premiere with almost unanimous hostility was suddenly to be found bemoaning the loss of one of French music’s greatest talents.
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