Bizet, so french!

Whereas the reception of Carmen had been lukewarm, and that of L’Arlésienne disastrous, the orchestral suites composed by Georges Bizet, taking up the main themes of those works, were a tremendous success as soon as they were presented in concert, and – at least where Carmen was concerned – may have encouraged the public to reconsider its opinion when the opera was revived. Such was the audiences’ enthusiasm for these streams of melodic ideas that, after Bizet’s death, Ernest Guiraud had to produce two more suites, based on the same scores, to keep concert programmers happy. As well as to these famous pieces by Bizet, Insula Orchestra, under Laurence Equilbey, gives prominence to works for cello and orchestra by Massenet and Dubois, with Victor Julien-Laferrière as soloist.