Out of Print...Each Opera Guide contains the complete text of an opera in the original, with a parallel English translation, introductory essays, numerous musical examples and illustrations. Bizet described himself as 'pagan and Carmen has a savage Mediterranean beauty quite unique in music. These essays suggest some reasons for its legendary theatrical appeal. Martin Cooper describes the traditional mixture of spoken words and song that stimulated Bizet to exclaim I want to revolutionise opra-comique!'; the translators show the ingenious and inspired ways in which he set about it. Ltsley Wright analyses the score and Michel Rabaud shows the uncanny appropriateness of Nietzsches support for Bizet in his famous attacks on the decadence of Wagner. This is the first time that the complete text of the verses that Bizet set to music, and the full dialogue (much of it especially translated for this Opera Guide), have ever been published.