Celestine Galli-Marie as Carmen de Bizet. Courtesy/SFOG

SFOG News:

Santa Fe Opera Guild Presents ‘Carmen’s Path from Novella to Opera’, 3-4:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 10 with presenter James Keller virtually on Zoom. (Virtual Check-In, 2:50 p.m. MDT)

Complementary for Guild Members; $10 Per Device for Non-Members.

Keller considers how composer Georges Bizet and librettists Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy put together their opera Carmen, drawing principally from Prosper Mérimée’s novella but from other literary and musical sources as well.

He will discuss how political, social, and aesthetic concerns came to bear on their decisions as they labored during three years from the opera’s conception to its premiere, in March 1875, and how the results led to immediate failure and eventual triumph.

Keller recently completed his 21st season as Program Annotator of the San Francisco Symphony. He is the author of Chamber Music: A Listener’s Guide (Oxford University Press) and has contributed chapters to books including American Mavericks, George Crumb and the Alchemy of Sound, and Leonard Bernstein, American Original.

In demand as a lecturer and interviewer, he was formerly Program Annotator of the New York Philharmonic, a writer-editor at The New Yorker, and critic at-large for the Santa Fe New Mexican. He has curated major museum exhibitions in California and New Mexico about historical popular music relating to those states.

For information online and to register: https:////www.guildsofsfo.org/SantaFe/Events.html                              https://conta.cc/3hAprqe

Bizet in 1875. Courtesy/SFOG