"Carmen" to Feature on Programme

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 52, 12 July 1929, Page 7

"Carmen" to Feature on Programme

Full Broadcast of Very Popular Opera TATION 83YA will be the first of the New Zealand stations to present the complete opera "Carmen." This is one of the best known and most popular of all such works, and the radio production, accompanied as it will be by a full description of the story. will prove a very interesting entertainment. "Carmen" is an opera by Bizet. The eentral figure is a daring, dark-eyed J gypsy girl working in a cigarette fackK tory in Seville. The other principal a characters are Don Jose, a sergeant; Zuniga, a lieutenant; Hscamillo, a bull fighter; and Micaela, a peasant girl. The first performance of ‘"Carmen" was a tragedy. The Parisians, still smarting over the war of 1870 and the siege of Paris, saw only a symbol of brutality in the vigorous music which Bizet gave them in this opera in 1875. They received ‘the work coldly; in fact, with impatience. It reminded them of Wagner. It must be remembered that Wagner had had the bad taste to publish "The Capitulation," which pressed home the agony of the war of 1870. Bizet left the opera house a broken-hearted man. He took to his bed and died within three months at the early age of thirty- . Seven, For the radio presentation, Columbia recordings by some of the world’s greatest artists will be used. Mr. W. H. Dixon, Professor of Singing, will describe the plot. "Carmen" will be presented in four instalments.. The dates allocated to the stations are:-3YA-July 17, 24, 81, August 7. 4YA-July 22, 29, August 5, 12. 1YA-July 238, 30, August 6, 13. 2YA-July 26, August 2, 9, 16.