Carmen Suite

GEORGIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA INGOLSTADT GAZARIAN

The Georgian Chamber Orchestra of Ingolstadt and their principal conductor Ruben Gazarian present their third new recording. Rodion Schedrin’s “Carmen Suite,” is a tribute to the great Russian prima ballerina and choreographer Maya Plisetskaya (1925-2015). The recording also honors her husband, the composer Rodion Shchedrin, who will celebrate his 85th birthday in 2017. This release is a live recording of a concert which took place on October 15, 2015 in Ingolstadt. Shchedrin composed “Carmen Suite” in the mid-1960s for his wife. The composition for strings and percussion is music taken from a ballet based on motives from Georges Bizet’s Opera “Carmen.” Familiar melodies from the opera “Carmen” are stylistically transformed by the use of colorful instrumentation which creates a markedly different atmosphere, as well as by the use of sharpened rhythms. Furthermore, the “Carmen Suite” also reflects upon motives from the second “L’Arlesienne Suite.” The premiere of the “Carmen Suite” on the 20th of April 1967 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow caused an enormous scandal: Schhedrin’s Carmen, portrayed by Plisetskaya in a highly erotic manner, was too suggestive for the Soviet society of the time. In spite of this, Plisetskaya was to personify Shchedrin’s Carmen in approximately 350 performances, for the last time in 1990 at the age of 65.

Price: $25.98