The chorus, particularly in Les Voici, are also excellent. There is some real Spanish flavour in the orchestration, and Nezet-Seguin's conducting one of the more electrifying conducting jobs since Kleiber or Abbado. The choreography in the preludes is inspired and very confidently performed. The high definition still is promising as is the sound. Flaws aside, the production looks great, the costumes look lovely and the scenery and backdrops have a real sense of authenticity. Rhodes is good vocally I give you that, but his presence is very uncompelling, I missed the confidence and swagger needed for the role. Granted the role is very promises-more-than-you-can-deliver sort of role, and one where it is difficult not to ham it up a notch.

My other flaw is the performance of Escamillo, courtesy of Teddy Tahu-Rhodes. This didn't work for me seeing as it is intended for the final scene to be a confrontation between Carmen and Don Jose(beautifully played otherwise by both leads with Garanca especially intense), which is one of the highlights of the opera, having a wooden bull really diminished the drama and gave a somewhat campy feel that didn't sit right with me. I didn't like it that the final scene is when a massive bull gets slaughtered. The Met production of Carmen is not perfect. Not only that, it is for me one of the better Met:Live in HD broadcasts, up there with Eugene Onegin, Il Trittico, Dr Atomic, La Boheme, Thais, La Rondine, Il Puritani and La Sonnambula, and infinitely superior to the disappointing Lucia Di Lammermoor(the Netrebko production) and the fiascoes that were Tosca and Hansel and Gretel. However, despite its problems it is one of the better Carmens I've seen and I've seen almost all that are listed on IMDb. Of the productions I've seen, this Carmen is not as good as the 19 films which are the definitive Carmens to me. Carmen is one of the most frequently recorded operas, dating back to a near-complete German acoustical recording in 1908.I love Carmen, it is one of my all-time favourites. The opera premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 3 March 1875.

This is a discography of audio and video recordings of Carmen, a French-language opera by Georges Bizet.

Carmen opera metropolitan 2010