There is also a popular orchestral suite drawn from the opera, and several violin and piano fantasies on its themes also exist. In recent years the original version has made a striking comeback, and one can argue that it is far more telling dramatically than the traditional version with the recitatives. Guiraud converted the original sections of spoken dialogue into recitative for the 1875 Vienna performances. With a libretto by Ludovic Halévy and Henri Meilhac, Carmen survives in no single authoritative version despite its enormous popularity and influence.
Bizet's aim in composing Carmen had been to transform the flaccid, moralistic bourgeois genre of opéra comique into a more sophisticated type of staged work.
Although almost unanimously condemned by Parisian critics after its first performances in 1875 for its overt sexuality and graphic final scene, Carmen intrigued a number of sophisticated minds and ultimately reached the public in a way that perhaps no other opera has. The reception history of Georges Bizet's final dramatic work, Carmen, is rife with ironies.
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