Please Note: this is an opera FILM not an opera house performance.


************ WARNING *************
The opening credits of this film are shown against a live bull-fight. It's brutal and graphic. The bloodied and tormented bull is shown in slow-motion close-up and is killed on screen. The death of the bull signifies the start of the opera. Some people may find this opening sequence sickening.
**********END OF WARNING***********

Here's the review from 'Gramophone':

"A new lease of life for a greatly admired filmed opera capturing some convincing performances from its charismatic leads

Bizet had to subdue Carmen’s realism to placate the Opera-Comique’s petit-bourgeois sensibilities. Francesco Rosi reinjects a powerful dose of authentic Spain to create one of the most successful opera films ever – and, as this DVD release brings out, one of the most visually stunning. At its core is a soundtrack performance (using the Oeser edition with rewritten dialogue) which ranks highly even as a CD release (9/85). Maazel’s buoyant lightness and edgy rhythmic energy are suitably Gallic, and his principals are visually and vocally compelling.

Migenes, looking ideally Mediterranean and exotic among Andalusians, was never a natural Carmen, forcing her tangy soprano downwards; but she triumphs over that with a vivid, sultry delivery and wild but unsluttish characterisation which, as was said of Regina Resnik, ‘puts the groin back in Carmen’. Her French is excellent, spoken and sung. Domingo’s is, as usual, terrible, but will do for a ‘Basque espagnol’. Singing even more superbly than for Solti (9/85), he makes a credible figure, initially stiff-necked but bottling up vulnerability and violence. Raimondi’s toreador is rightly less fatuous than usual, suggesting strong feelings beneath the charisma and adroitly balancing the role’s awkward blend of bravura and lyrical chanson. Esham’s Micaela is vocally lean but visually winsome, and other singers, notably Lilian Watson’s Frasquita, are excellent.

Rosi overcomes the weaknesses of lip-sync less by long-shot, as has been suggested, than careful camera angles and deft, musically sensitive cutting. De Santis’s photography meshes gloriously with the rich hues of the score, drawing lyricism from gritty realism – including some grisly bullfight imagery – with real distinction. DVD captures the sound and the hard-edged Spanish sunlight with a clarity which eclipses video versions and even most cinema prints. Strongly recommended."

Here are the Amazon reviews (69 of them!):

http://www.amazon.com/Bizet-Carmen-Maazel-Migenes-Domingo/dp/B000022TSV/sr=1-3/qid=1159871304/ref=pd_bbs_3/002-6964369-1640047?ie=UTF8&s=dvd

VobSubs: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese and Swedish.

I have used constant bit rate for the audio encoding so you can cut the video without any lip-sync problems.

Carmen by Georges Bizet

Cast:
Julia Migenes .... Carmen (as Julia Migenes-Johnson)
Plácido Domingo .... Don José
Ruggero Raimondi .... Escamillo
Faith Esham .... Micaëla
François Le Roux .... Moralès
John-Paul Bogart .... Zuñiga
Susan Daniel .... Mercédès
Lillian Watson .... Frasquita
Jean-Philippe Lafont .... Dancaïre
Gérard Garino .... Remendado
Julien Guiomar .... Lillas Pastia


The video was ripped/encoded into Xvid/AC3 using DVD Decrypter/AutoGK
The video is 2hrs 29mins long 1650 Kbps, 25.0 fps, 656*400 (16:9)
The size of the video is 2.44Gigs