Bizet: Carmen - Callas, Gedda (Salle Wagram, Paris 1964) [Subtitles]

Bizet's "Carmen" featuring Maria Callas and Nicolai Gedda, conducted by Georges Prêtre at Salle Wagram in Paris in 1964, is considered one of the greatest interpretations of the opera.
Maria Callas' portrayal of Carmen is renowned for its fiery passion and emotional intensity, and Nicolai Gedda's performance as Don José is equally powerful. The recording also features the Orchestre de l’Opéra national de Paris, which delivers a dynamic and precise performance under Prêtre's skilled direction.
This recording has been praised for its high-quality sound and faithful representation of the original performance. It has been meticulously remastered from the original taps in 2014 and remains a popular choice for fans of opera and Classical Music.
GEORGES BIZET 1838-1875
Carmen
Opera in four acts · Libretto: Henri Meilhac & Ludovic Halévy
Carmen...................................MARIA CALLAS
Don José................................NICOLAI GEDDA
Micaëla...................................ANDRÉA GUIOT
Escamillo...............................ROBERT MASSARD
Frasquita...............................NADINE SAUTEREAU
Mercédès..............................JANE BERBIÉ
Le Dancaïre...........................JEAN-PAUL VAUQUELIN
Le Remendado......................JACQUES PRUVOST / MAURICE MAIEVSKI
Moralès..................................CLAUDE CALES
Zuniga....................................JACQUES MARS
Chœurs René Duclos Chorus master: Jean Laforge
Chœurs d’enfants Jean Pesneaud
Orchestre du Théâtre National de l’Opéra de Paris
Georges Prêtre
Remastered from the original analog tapes at Abbey Road Studios in 2014
Recorded: 6-20.VII.1964, Salle Wagram, Paris
Producer: Michel Glotz · Balance engineer: Paul Vavasseur
A Warner Classics release, (p) 1964, Remastered 2014 Parlophone Records Limited

[@ladivinafanatic]

No other Carmen recordings can surpass this. I love Maria Callas ❤

[@trevor3232]

My favorite moment is in the card scene where she plummets to a low Z for "la mort." Chilling!

[@victormateuslisboadossanto4604]

Act I: 0:05; Act II: 50:02; Act III: 01:30:04; Act IV: 02:07:30.

[@eiriniseltsika8697]

Εξαιρετική ηχογραφηση , η φωνή καί η ερμηνεία της Κάλλας ασύλληπτη , ένας θρυλικός ρόλος ακόμα

[@user-gn9cl5ku8z]

Превосходная каллас кармен какое перевоплащение многогранность ее таланта вызывает восхищение ❤ большое спасибо вам ❤

[@eloperista]

Callas is wonderful, but too Guiot, Gedda, Massard and all, and Prêtre incredible. The choir, the orchestra. The best really

[@Fairpavel]

Thank you!

[@ianng9915]

THANK YOU SO MUCH PLEASE MAKE MORE OF THIS Would love the Callas 51 Aida tho, since I haven't heard it yet haha, anyways thanks for the Tosca and Carmen

[@Matthew9.__]

it's live and i doubt they post any recording that is live and not studio with great sound

[@user-hy3uo5kr3q]

I love Callas. She was not a mezzo, but she was Callas.

[@user-fy9dy3cx1i]

12:15 - ce doit 13:35 - c’est la 25:00 - Quels 35:04 - Restela 39:35 - Mon officier 42:00 - A la prison 45:20 - Taistoi 1:09:45 - Haltela 1:17:12 - La fleur 1:21:02 - Que distu 1:25:00 - Que frappe 1:27:40 - Il le 1:28:46 - Ah 1:35:20 - No tre 1:37:28 - Je me dis 1:55:48 - Votre nom 2:01:45 - Prends 2:18:19 - C’est toi

[@JTSJTS]

Je vous remercie !!!!

[@jeanottoto2518]

Merveilleux enregistrement avec la plus grande Micaela de l' après guerre , Andrea tout simplement Royale , de nos jours elle serait une Star !

[@fabriziogarzi9892]

Guiot vale poco.

[@eloperista]

Andréa Guiot était une voix formidable, la meilleure interprète de Micaëla sans doute

[@fabriziogarzi9892]

@@eloperista non e' un grande ruolo. Una voce piuttosto comune, poco riconoscibile.

[@user-lb5jl3uj1s]

Love Maria Love Noicolai ❤

[@johankritzinger4206]

my favourite Carmen recording

[@malinlundstrom2784]

Best Carmen ever ❤

[@tamunagejadze9750]

❤❤❤❤❣️🙏🏾☀️🌹

[@user-mr3cz5vt6n]

Une Carmen pour toujours ❤

[@louise_rose]

Yes, I have this one, in a good pressing (on the Jugoton label). Found it in great condition at a local thrift shop. :)

[@petitsaule622]

❤❤❤

[@user-pg3sm4uw9c]

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹💕💖💞

[@user-cu9dy4vh4b]

❤❤❤❤

[@user-kn1fr3ho2r]

12:15- ce doit 13:35- c’est la

[@SteveODonnell25]

Towards the end of Callas’s career, there were many rumors that she was planning to perform Carmen on stage. This was never to be, but Carmen became her penultimate complete recording of an opera - and her only complete recording of a French opera. With Georges Prêtre, one of her favored conductors, and the ever-stylish Nicolai Gedda as her Don José, she captured every facet of the role. As Gramophone said when the set was first released: ‘Hers is a Carmen to haunt you.’ ‘Callas IS Carmen’ proclaimed the publicity when this recording first appeared on LP in elaborate red and gold faux-leather luxury packaging with three separate booklets. It was a major coup for the record company to get Callas to record this most intriguing of all operatic roles, and its release was eagerly awaited. Opera houses around the world had been trying for years to persuade Callas to play Carmen, but the closest this ever came was when she sang the two first-act arias in a Golden Hour TV concert from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 1962. Callas had thought long and hard as to how she might portray the fiery gypsy on stage, but in a filmed interview with Lord Harewood she said that Carmen behaved like a man in that she took her lovers as it pleased her, whereas she (Callas) was a more romantic, feminine person who would not behave in this aggressive way in affairs of the heart. At the beginning of 1964, after a gap of several years, Callas had returned triumphantly to the operatic stage in the acclaimed Zeffirelli production of Tosca at Covent Garden and then appeared in a sumptuous new staging of Norma at the Paris Opéra. The Carmen sessions began two weeks after the final Norma and found Callas in magnificent voice. Despite certain expectations that Callas’s Carmen would somehow be the most violent, most extreme interpretation of the part, the actual result is a superb performance of infinite subtlety and detail that brings the character vividly to life. All the requisite elements of seductiveness, charm and defiance are there. It is a performance full of inner fire, but everything is kept totally under control until the final blazing outburst at the end. Was Callas Carmen? We will never know how she would have interpreted the role on stage, but as far as singing is concerned the answer is: ‘Yes’, and this recording is the proof.

[@cashelnd]

A great impression of this recording. I t was my first encounter with the opera, and this may color my enduring appreciation of it, but after decades of listening to, hearing in live performance, and watching video performances of many productions of the opera, the Callas Carmen remains the absolute and unparalleled reference. It is more cinematic in its drama than all of the video/filmic versions.

[@davidmolina7543]

Thank you for your exhaustive tweet. I learned a few things.

[@Hussain_Eidani]

The best Carmen ❤

[@mrshovelbottom7475]

4:20 36:30 51:35 55:20 1:04:30 1:09:25 2:07:30 2:22:10 *ENGLISH Translation from google* CARMEN No, I don't love you anymore. JOSE But I, Carmen, still love you; Carmen, alas! me I adore you! CARMEN What's the point of all this? So many superfluous words! JOSE Carmen, I love you, I adore you! Well, if necessary, to please you, I will remain a bandit, whatever you want - everything, you hear me? All! But don't leave me, oh my Carmen, ah! remember, remember the past! We used to love each other! Ah! don't leave me, Carmen, ah, don't leave me! CARMEN Carmen will never give in! Free she was born and free she will die! *FRENCH* CARMEN Non, je ne t'aime plus. JOSÉ Mais moi, Carmen, je t'aime encore; Carmen, hélas! moi, je t'adore! CARMEN À quoi bon tout cela ? Que de mots superflus! JOSÉ Carmen, je t'aime, je t'adore! Eh bien, s'il le faut, pour te plaire, je resterai bandit, tout ce que tu voudras - tout, tu m'entends? Tout! Mais ne me quitte pas, ô ma Carmen, ah! souviens-toi, souviens-toi du passé! Nous nous aimions naguère! Ah! ne me quitte pas, Carmen, ah, ne me quitte pas! CARMEN Jamais Carmen ne cédera! Libre elle est née et libre elle mourra!

[@ER1CwC]

It has been years since I've listened to this recording. The card scene was one of the performances that got me interested in Callas in the first place. That scene remains dramatically potent. Interpretively, this is quite an interesting performance. Notwithstanding her claims that Carmen is "more of a man" who targets Jose like a prey, I hear quite a bit of love in her portrayal as opposed to lust. Vocally, though, it cannot be denied that her voice is a mess here. Of course, if one likes the basic profile of her voice, then one will be able to work through even the most technically problematic recordings. But the middle voice is in complete disarray here. She cannot sing an ah vowel in the middle at all without modifying it to eh or uh, and there are some very unruly register breaks. She does work the latter into her interpretation, which is interesting, but a technical problem is a technical problem. The bottom remains impressive, and some of the moderately high notes do make an impact.

[@tomberbers]

The role does not fit for callas.