Opera News
'... highly singable translation of Bizet's masterpiece... Parry's use of consonants here is nicely punchy and pointed. The formidable Bardon, like a cat with a mouse, toys with the music, silkily carressing the lines, then pouncing for the kill. Her spoken exchanges with Escamillo could restore the dead to manly vigor... Garry Magee's Escamillo catches Bardon's fire.'
Recorded in Watford Colosseum
27-30 August and 2-3 September 2002
Producer - Brian Couzens, Sound engineer - Ralph Couzens, Assistant engineer - Matthew Walker
Opéra comique in four acts
Libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy
Based on the novel by Prosper Mérimée
New Urtext Edition by Richard Langham Smith
English translation by David Parry
Published by Peters Edition Ltd
The Cast
Patricia Bardon, mezzo-soprano - Carmen
Mary Plazas, soprano (PMF Scholar) - Micaëla
Mary Hegarty, soprano - Frasquita
Sally Harrison, soprano - Mercédès
Julian Gavin, tenor - Don José
Garry Magee, baritone - Escamillo
Peter Wedd, tenor (PMF Scholar) - Dancaïre
Mark Le Brocq, tenor - Remendado
Nicholas Garrett, bass - Zuniga
Toby Stafford-Allen, baritone (PMF Scholar) - Moralès
Clare McCaldin, mezzo-soprano - An Orange Vendor
Paul Parfitt, bass-baritone - A Gipsy
Officers, Soldiers, Children, Cigarette Girls, Gipsies, Bohemians, Smugglers etc. - Geoffrey Mitchell Choir and New London Children's Choir
Philharmonia Orchestra
David Parry - Conductor
