I Could Read the Sky

Amazon.com
Strictly speaking, this isn't a solo album or a follow-up to Iarla O'Lionaird's The Seven Steps to Mercy. This is actually the soundtrack to an Irish film and sees the singer working with talents such as Martin Hayes, Noel Hill, Sinead O'Connor, and producer Ron Aslan. Which isn't to say there isn't plenty of O'Lionaird's wonderful sean nos singing--there's a gorgeous version of "I'm Stretched on Your Grave," for example--but this is a man's experience in Ireland and England, running the gamut from simple beauty to some desperate and nightmarish dreamscapes. A lot of the tracks work heavily off samples, both instruments and voices, with O'Lionaird providing many of the textures himself. The juxtaposition of the green and the grit--country and city, innocence and experience--push this along, and O'Connor has rarely sounded as naked as she does on "Roisin Dubh." The final duet between vocalists is as pure and lovely as Irish music gets. --Chris Nickson

Product Description
This Record Contains a Glittering Array of Stars Including Sinead O'Connor, martin Hayes, dennis Cahill, noel Hill and Political Rapper/Poet Ri-Ra.

I Could Read the Sky,Iarla Ó Lionáird,Real World,Celtic,Celtic Fusion,Celtic/Irish,Int'l & World Music,Ireland,Pop,Traditional Irish Folk,World Music

Carmen (Sung in English)
Average customer rating:

English is an asset and a drawback

You Will Love Opera After Hearing Carmen In English

A wholly credible "Carmen" -- finally!

I love Carmen!

Carmen (Sung in English)
Bizet , Bardon , Gavin , Plazas , Magee , and Parry
Manufacturer: Chandos
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
Operettas | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
General | Classical | Styles | Music
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Mozart - Don Giovanni / Garry Magee · Cullagh · Banks · Plazas · Shore · Tierny · PO · David Parry

ASIN: B00007JGRN
Release Date: 2003-03-11

Tracks:

Prelude
In The Plaza
Just Look At That Delicious Morsel
Here Come Our New Soldier Boys
Jose! There Was A Girl Here Looking For You Just Now
Off With You Old Soldier Boys
Corporal! Sir!
We Have Heard The Bell Summon Us To Meet Here
Ah, Just Look!
But Why Hasn't She Come, Our Carmencita?
Love's A Bird Wild As Any Rebel
Carmen! We Will Follow You High And Low!
The Cheek Of It!
Give Me News Of My Mother!
Your Dear Mother And I Were Leaving Church This Morning
I See My Mother's Face!
Wait A Moment - I'm Going To Read The Letter
Come And Help
So, Corporal: Tell Me What Happened
Well, Carmencita: What Do You Have To Say For Yourself?
Where Are You Taking Me?
There's An Old Bar In The City
Careful - It's Lieutenant!
Entr'acte
From Far Away Mysterious Sounds
Bravo, Bravo! More! Keep Dancing!
Hurrah! Hurrah! The Torero!
Who's That? It's Escamillo, The Bullfighter From Granada
Hurrah! Hurrah! The Torero!
You're Most Kind
We'll Come With You, Senor Torero
Toreador, Be Ready!
At Last! We Got Rid Of Them As Quickly As We Could
There's A Little Job That We're Starting!
Being In Love Is Not A Reason

Tracks:

To Bid You Welcome To Our Bar
La La La La La La La La...
Back To Camp!... Go At Once!
That Flow'r You Threw To Me I Treasured
No, It's Not Love At All!
Hello! Carmen!
Lieutenant Fair, It's True
The Sky Above The Open Road
Entr'acte
Keep Going, Dear Old Friend, Kep Going!
Right! Let's Stop For A While
Shuffle! Cut Them!
In Vain You Would Avoid The Bitter Things They're Saying
You're Back!
As For That Man, It Should Be Easy!
Is This The Place?
I Say That There's Nothing To Fear
It's Him! I'm Sure It's Him Over There!
Escamillo Is My Name, And I Come From Granada
She Had A Lover Here
Hola! Hola! Jose!
You Should Take Care, Carmen
Alas! Jose, Your Mother Is Ill
Entr'acte
A Few Cuartos! A Few Cuartos!
Here They Come! Here They Come!
If You Love Me, Carmen
It's You! It's Me!
Viva! Viva! What A Corrida!

Customer Reviews:

English is an asset and a drawback.......2004-07-20

The best thing about this recording of Carmen is the libretto. Conductor David Parry penned this facile and dramatic English translation. He avoids the pitfalls of literal translation to achieve an idiomatic flow that matches the rhythm of the original lyrics. I use this as a reference libretto for any of the French Carmens.

Unfortunately, the performance suffers from being sung in English. The singers declaim their parts with such proper British diction that Carmen comes across as a school marm. The spoken dialog is delivered beat for deliberate beat and is dripping with reverb. It makes the plaza, tavern and mountain pass all sound like a sewer pipe.

This is a good first Carmen for someone trying to understand the work. The libretto itself is a good investment for further listening. For an enjoyable performance with an emphasis on character and action, I recommend Regina Resnik on the London Double Decker set.

You Will Love Opera After Hearing Carmen In English.......2004-02-09

What a perfect introduction to opera. This newly released recording will surely get you hooked into opera. Carmen, a French opera by Georges Bizet, is the most recognizable and most popular in the opera world. It's famous melodies- the overture, the Habanera, The Toreador Song have all been featured in everything from cellular phone ring tones to Superbowl Commercial (last year's Superbowl with The "Opera In English" label has been making Italian operas into English for a number of years now. Also on the market are Verdi's La Traviata in English (with soprano Valerie Masterson as Violetta) Handel's Julius Caesar with Janet Baker and even Wagner's epic Ring Of The Nibeling sung in English. This is a terrific recording and I highly recommend it if you want to get into opera. Listen to this version first and then try the real, original French version Bizet had written. Patricia Bardon is sensational, sexy and dramatic as Carmen.

The real strength of this version is the dynamic drama. With the advantage of being sung in English, we get better insight on characters' emotions and motives, and we understand the drama a lot better. Carmen is all about great drama. Bizet drew the plot from the French writer Prosper Merimee's dark short story. Carmen is the ultimate femme fatale- a devil-may-care, sexy Gypsy living in Spain, seduces the conservatively raised soldier Don Jose, stealing him away from his fiancee, the passive Micaela, living a life of underground smuggling and rowdy taverns. "Habanera" and "The Gypsy Song and Dance" are very expressive of Carmen's extraordinarily liberal lifestyle. Don Jose, however, has fallen deeply in love- as he shows us in his song/aria "The Flower Song". But Carmen soon becomes tired of his constancy. Don Jose wants a committed, monogamous relationship with Carmen. But Carmen will not submit to love, since she is first and foremost a carnal creature. Eventually, she falls for the handsome Toreador Escamillo. Don Jose, consumed by jealousy, stabs Carmen at a bullfight after Carmen declares her love for Escamillo and rejects Don Jose's love. Don Jose's crazed, obscessive personality shines through in the English version as well. This tragedy has been done in English before so don't think this is the first time. Back in the 50's, there was a film, starring black actors "Carmen Jones" which was treated the same way as this opera- more like an English Broadway musical and with the dubbed singing voice of Marilyn Horne as Carmen. All in all, this recording is excellent.

A wholly credible "Carmen" -- finally!.......2003-09-17

This recording really sells "Carmen" as a drama. Although I have two other recordings of this opera and have seen it performed several times, it never quite worked for me dramatically. But thanks to the fine performances, conducting, and translation here, I've become a "Carmen" convert. Producing a good English-language performance of a foreign opera, especially a warhorse like "Carmen," is much more difficult than it might appear. You need performers who not only can sing the parts (of course) but also can sing *English* and make it halfway intelligible and make it sound like English and make it dramatically convincing to English-speakers. The singers on this recording do an excellent job all around. Don't be put off if you don't recognize their names -- they are up to the task musically and (especially) in their acting. Admittedly, as with *all* English-language recordings, some passages are very hard to understand without reading along, but most of the time the words are clear and effective. I would recommend this recording to any opera beginner or opera lover, even those who normally turn up their noses at performances in translation.

I love Carmen!.......2003-08-15

I do. I can think of no other opera with more melodic inventiveness, and few others with so sure a dramatic pulse. Carmen is popular and it thrills me to say that it is also a very good opera - not always true of popular things.

And what of this recording? Carmen sits well in English, so it is good to hear in translation, although some of the detais in the text jar. Escamillo refers to Jose as "my dear", which sounds rather peculiar, and the guide's line to Micaela: "it's not exactly inviting, is it?" sounds distinctly Middle England rather than Rural Spain. Some of the performers, not least Carmen herself, make the words work, although there are long tracts, especially with the chorus, where the language is distinctly indistinct.

The soloists are, by and large, strong. Patricia Bardon's deep, Handel-friendly voice adapts well to Carmen and she colours the music with phenomenal detail, sounding sexy and provocative from the start with an edge of pride and anger that emerges as the show goes on. She is out of her depth above the stave, though, and some extra top notes in the second act don't show her off to her best advantage. I have previously said that Julian Gavin is poorly served by recordings, though here he sounds much more even and gives a thrilling and musical performance (but his wooden spoken lines let him down). Mary Plazas is a lovely Micaela, rich-voiced and sincere (and word-perfect), but Garry Magee sounds miscast as Escamillo, lacking the ballast at the bottom of the voice to do justice to this tricky role.

The supporting cast is good (Mary Hegarty seems to do nothing but Frasquita these days!) but the really treasurable thing is the conducting. Stepping out of Italian Ottocento, David Parry turns his hand to this French Comedie with an appropriate lightness of touch. His pacing and handling of the set pieces is exemplary and the enrtractes go with a real swing.

Tracks:

Dream
I'm Stretched On Your Grave
Mother
In England
The King
Iron And Gold
The Old Road To Garry
Consecrate
Knuckles To The Marrow
Prayer
Grace
Roisin Dubh
The Mountains Of Pomeroy
Singing Bird (Live)

Amazon.com

Strictly speaking, this isn't a solo album or a follow-up to Iarla O'Lionaird's The Seven Steps to Mercy. This is actually the soundtrack to an Irish film and sees the singer working with talents such as Martin Hayes, Noel Hill, Sinead O'Connor, and producer Ron Aslan. Which isn't to say there isn't plenty of O'Lionaird's wonderful sean nos singing--there's a gorgeous version of "I'm Stretched on Your Grave," for example--but this is a man's experience in Ireland and England, running the gamut from simple beauty to some desperate and nightmarish dreamscapes. A lot of the tracks work heavily off samples, both instruments and voices, with O'Lionaird providing many of the textures himself. The juxtaposition of the green and the grit--country and city, innocence and experience--push this along, and O'Connor has rarely sounded as naked as she does on "Roisin Dubh." The final duet between vocalists is as pure and lovely as Irish music gets. --Chris Nickson

Album Details

This Record Contains a Glittering Array of Stars Including Sinead O'Connor, martin Hayes, dennis Cahill, noel Hill and Political Rapper/Poet Ri-Ra.

Customer Reviews:

Gorgeous........2004-10-04

I listened to the Afro Celts for quite a while before I bought this CD, and didn't want to compare O'Lionaird's work here with his work with the group. But comparison has only made me more impressed. This is a vastly different kind of work, obviously, and it showcases other (and more deeply interpretive, I think) sides of his wonderful voice that you won't hear in an Afro Celts CD. I love both works equally, but in very different ways. I recommend this CD to those familiar with the Afro Celts as an interesting compare-and-contrast, and to everyone in general for its simple beauty.

I hesitated before buying this - but I love it........2004-07-29

Iarla O'Lionnaird was recommended to me as an example of Irish pronunciation in his Sean Nos singing. From searching on his name I came up with this album. One of the reviews here mentioned Myst and Riven ... and due to this, and other positive reviews, I ended up buying this album instead of the Sean Nos album as a result (although there is also a truly damning review below as well).

Well - it's really wonderful stuff. His voice is gentle yet possesses great depth. The improvised fiddle playing on 'Mother' is lyrical, tentative yet accomplished. Iarla's beautiful West Cork accent on 'In England' truly makes me homesick, although I was born and bred near Belfast.

I find Knuckles to the Marrow more difficult to listen to ... roared rather than sung as it is. The lyrics are sheer poetry though.

And although I also love Sinead O'Connor's voice, I felt she was uncharacteristically tentative on Roisin Dubh. I've seen the word 'anaemic' used to describe her treatment of this particular song and while I wouldn't go that far, it hasn't been the stand-out track of the album that I thought it would be. That, for me, would be 'I'm Stretched on Your Grave'.

Yes, it's melancholy, dark, tragic, a soundtrack rather than an album as such. But it's truly impressive and I love it.

Eclectic, ethereal, poetic........2001-08-07

I haven't seen this film, but purchased the CD based on the samples found here. This is a rich collection of haunting, poignant contemporary and traditional Irish music. The liner notes contain lyrics, a small realworld catalog of music, and beautiful black and white images by photographer Steve Pyke.

Boldly Eclectic.......2001-04-23

Contrary to what some of want to believe, the sun doesn't shine every day (especially in the British Isles). This album exposes the gamut of experience from bliss to devastation in a boldly eclectic endeavor. I Could Read The Sky succeeds because of its modern treatment in spite of the limited format that motion picture soundtracks offer. It is unforgettably provocative because of the stunning vocals of O'Lionaird. This kind of music is not for the Celt fan (judging from the harsh reviews) but is definitely for someone seeking a rare gem of expressive music and broader horizons.

Ok, but definitely something different.......2001-01-12

I have to agree with the majority of the reviews on this page currently.

This is a CD with an extremely wide range: jarring to simple beauty. The majority of it is 'nice', but definitely not what one would expect from following his earlier works (AfroCelt, namely). Some tracks are simply evil - they don't have any seeming connection to themselves, even!

Would YOU, you reader and potential buyer... YOU! Would you like it? Well, if you liked the tracks for the games 'Riven' and 'Myst', then, yes, I'd say that there are a lot of similarities (Iron and Gold, for instance, has a beginning that sounds straight out of the Riven CD).

I hope this review helped.

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