Claudio Abbado / London Symphony Orchestra GEORGES BIZET Carmen

Prosper Mérimée who wrote the original story Carmen, placed Don José at the centre of its action. Mérimée's novel is a narration whitin a narration. His storyteller is a scholarly French archaeologist who has his repeater watch stolen from him - shades of Die Fledermaus! - while he is on his travels in Spain. He is asked to testify against the thief, demurs in a gentlemany fashion, but after being assured that the villian, Don José, is going to be hanged anyway for other crimes, goes off to see him in the interest of research into the Spanish character. The archaeologist takes along in his hand a number of good cigars. Encouraged by this act of generosity, José obliges with an account of the events which led up to his imprisonment and his execution on the morrow.

José's narration is brief - little more than 40 pages - but it is direct and totally unsentimental. It is a soldier's tale of a man who has lost everything, his rank, his livelihood and now his life itself, because of a sudden infatuation with a woman. José asks for no sympathy but simply requests the archaeologist to make a detour to Pamplona on his return journey to France and give a small silver medallion to a good woman in that town. She is to be told that José is dead, but not how he died ("... vous la ferez remettre à une bonne femme dont je vous dirai l'adresse. Vouz direz que je suis mort, vous ne direz pas comment.") It was from these two sentences that Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy were to invent the character of Micaëla when they came to construct the libretto for Bizet's opera.

Mérimée's Carmen may be more of a liar and a cheat, but the fascination she exerts in the novel and the opera are identical. The José who sings about the way he has been struck and overcome by a sudden passion for a gypsy girl is the same man - or almost the same man - as the one who tells a passing archaeologist just why the gallows await him in the morning. (WOLFGANG DÖMLING.- Translation: ADELE POINDEXTER)

This is a super performance, slightly outside the common mold. In 1977, when this was recorded, Claudio Abbado was a great opera conductor, filled with sharp insights and a nice sense of the architecture of whole operas. He always seemed to know where he was going, and his ability to build to climaxes was second to none. Abbado has a rather elegant Carmen here in the smallish-voiced, introspective Teresa Berganza, a gorgeous singer who patently refuses to force her voice or her character into vulgarity. It's a fine reading. Placido Domingo is at his best in both intimate and maniacal moments, and Ileana Cotrubas's Micaela almost makes us care about this happy little gal. Sherrill Milnes's Escamillo has plenty of swagger and voice. Berganza's subtlety combined with the wild passions of those around her make this a very good Carmen indeed. (Robert Levine )