Blu-Ray:
Carmen

As highlight of this year, Monarda Music presents a sensational filmed document from the musical legacy of Carlos Kleiber: Carmen (1978).

As highlight of this year, Monarda Music presents a sensational filmed document from the musical legacy of Carlos Kleiber only in BluRay: the wonderful staging of Carmen by director Franco Zeffirelli in a live recording from the Vienna State Opera in 1978.

The meticulous conductor only ever conducted a highly selected repertoire and among his very few audio and video recordings are only seven complete operas. The Zefirelli staging is the only premiere that Kleiber ever conducted. In December 1978, the masterly Franco Zefirelli created a colourful and atmospheric imagery while the musical genius of Kleiber drew from the music a rhythmic vitality and subtle passion that never lost its transparency and lightness.

Carlos Kleiber conducted an extraordinary cast. Plácido Domingo, still the young lyrical tenor, starred as Don Jose, and Elena Obraztsova gave a wonderful natural Carmen, a far cry from the usual she-devil erotic cliché. The cast was completed by the young Isobel Buchanan who stood in at this production at short notice and included Yuri Mazurok who was later to become a high ranking Verdi baritone.

The Viennese audience in the opera house hailed the performance as a triumph. “The applause”, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, “threatened to last as long as a full-length opera”, and the legend of Carlos Kleiber’s Vienna Carmen was born.

English title Carmen
Genre Classical Music
Conductor Carlos Kleiber