On track: Bizet's Carmen flamboyant yet intimate

By WILLIAM DART

Friedrich Nietzsche may have been one of Wagner's heros, but the man who gave Zarathustra to the world preferred Carmen to Tristan, praising Bizet's opera for its mixture of the "subtly fatalistic" and "popular".

I suspect Nietzsche would have adored this new EMI recording, starring the operatic dream team of Angela Gheorghiu and her husband Roberto Alagna. Recorded last year in France, under the baton of Michel Plasson, with the estimable Orchestre Nationale du Capitole du Toulouse, this is an exquisite take on a perennial classic.

The fashion these days is to treat Carmen as the Opera Comique Bizet intended, with spoken dialogue. This version boldly reinstates the Guiraud recitatives, creating a consistency of tone that may well appeal to many armchair opera buffs.

And there are extras: a short (and jolly) comic turn for Morales near the beginning of the opera as well as the composer's first thoughts for Carmen's entrance aria, a piece that was eventually replaced by the celebrated Habanera.

This original aria, "L'amour est enfant de boheme", is a vivid piece of writing in the tradition of the French lyric opera and, predictably, a showcase for Gheorghiu.

Although a soprano, Gheorghiu's dark Slavic voice gives her performance the weight and authority of a mezzo. The Seguidillas is almost unbearably provocative and the vituperation of her taunts to Don Jose at the end of the opera could curdle the blood. It's in this final act that Alagna comes into his own, with the ideal blend of stamina and sentiment.

There are so many pleasures throughout these three CDs, apart from the recording itself which balances flamboyance and intimacy to perfection.

To start with, there's an Escamillo in Thomas Hampson who isn't just macho bluster, and a Micaela in Inva Mula who isn't just bland. A lusty gamin chorus in the First Act together with a fleet-footed Quintet in the Second are appreciated, and it's nice to see Filomena Garcia getting a credit for her castanets on Carmen's Act Two aria.

If there is a mail-order CD service beyond the veil, I suspect Nietzsche may have already ordered his copy.

*Bizet, Carmen (EMI Classics, 5 57434, three-disc set)