Recorded on 11/20/2010, uploaded on 11/20/2010 Musician's or
Publisher's Notes Easily Bizet’s most well-known opera, and
among the most oft-performed in the repertoire, Carmen endured
an arduous path from its inception to its modern popularity.
Throughout the 1860s, Bizet had little success in Paris
performing his stage works. The two principal opera houses, the
Opéra and Opéra-Comique, catered to conservative tastes, leaving
little chance for works by young artists to be staged. However,
a staging of his one-act opera Djamileh at the Opéra-Comique in
1872, though a disaster itself, led to a further commission for
a full-length opera. Partnered with librettists Henri Meilhac
and Ludovic Halévy, Bizet began discussions with the theater’s
representative, Aldophe de Leuven, on the selection of an
appropriate story. After politely turning down suggestions made
by De Leuven, Bizet suggested the novella Carmen by Prosper
Mérimée, a work he possibly first encountered during his trip to
Rome in 1858-60. De Leuven, ho