I have just watched this entire performance amazing simply amazing, Agnes is simply fantastic of Carmen - she really was a she devil and Jose Carreras he broke my heart the transformation from the happy and carefree soldier at the beginning to the tortured jealous man at the end just unbelievable and only 4 months before he was diagnosed with leukaemia I believe.
This is just the best, building toward the tragedy of careless passion and dismayed love. We know what will happen as Don Jose keeps throwing lifelines toward the relationship Carmen has abandoned. Her fire never leaves her, but as she slides out of Jose's arms, they both pay the price for it. Carreras and his magnificent voice create a scintillating, tragic figure, a victim of Carmen's passion and his own.
How could anyone answer "no" when Jose asks if you love him? Only Carmen, and only because it's Jose the soldier asking, not the wonderful, irresistable Jose Carreras. 😊
I was disppointed in this. Baltsa shines in places, but the acting is, as someone else mentioned, strange, the conducting drags in places and Carreras' lyric voice just isn't suited to this kind of repertoire, however beautiful it may be.
Don José is a role for either lyric tenor or spinto tenor, but a "bigger" voice would suit better for some tastes, like Corelli, del Monaco or Cortis. I'm not an expert anyway and Carreras is not bad at all.
I saw a similar cast in this opera at Covent Garden. I sat right at the back of the gods and Carreras made a pretty impressive sound. Actually he slight struggles with the bigger stuff in the final act added to effect of a man lost to his passions
