Recitative
Videos
Recitative can be distinguished on a continuum from more speech-like to more musically sung, with more sustained melodic lines. The mostly syllabic recitativo semplice of the 17th to early 19th centur
This score for Handel's Lascia ch'io pianga shows the simple accompaniment for a recitative; much of the time, the basso continuo (the lower staff in bass clef) play half notes and whole notes underneath the vocalist's recitative part.
Carmen
Videos
Carmen is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera
Recitative
…new recitatives: Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischütz (1821, adapted 1841 with recitatives by Hector Berlioz for the Paris Opera), Georges Bizet's Carmen (1875, recitatives by Ernest Guiraud for the posthumous run in Vienna the same year), Charles Gounod's Mireille and La colombe (staged by Sergei Diaghilev…
Poster from the 1875 première
Célestine Galli-Marié as Carmen
Lithograph of act 1 in the premiere performance, by Pierre-Auguste Lamy, 1875
Magdalena Kožená and Jonas Kaufmann at the Salzburg Festival 2012