Bizet: Carmen (in English). (Opera and Oratorio).(Sound Recording Review)

[] Bardon, Plazas; Gavin, Magee; Geoffrey Mitchell Choir, New London Children's Choir, Philharmonia Orchestra, Parry. Essays in translation and English libretto. Chandos 3091(2)

The latest installment in the Peter Moores Foundation's "Opera in English" project features conductor David Parry's highly singable translation of Bizet's masterpiece. (The performing edition, by Richard Langham Smith, purports to be an urtext, based on Bizet's original intentions as well as on adjustments made in early performances at the Opera Comique.) Listening to a performance in one's own tongue of a work so familiar in French can be startling: "Is that what they're saying?" Yet Parry's choices seem judicious overall. One could do worse than "Love is a child of gipsy [sic] blood / Who cannot see what rules are all about;/ If you don't love me now, I'll love you:/ If I love you, then just watch out!" Parry's use of consonants there is nicely punchy and pointed, and it doesn't prevent his Carmen and chorus from sustaining high notes. The problem here, as in some previous Moores Foundation efforts, isn't the translation, it's the accents.

Even in Cockney, the English-speaking cast sounds too posh for most of the characters. Carmen is an outsider, a Gypsy among Spaniards, someone below the lowest caste. Her music reminds us of her status at every turn; so can her speaking voice. An ...