Talk:Lakmé

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[edit] Comment

I would like to change the sentence:

"The most famous music from the opera is the beautiful Flower Duet which was heard by millions when British Airways selected it for their commercials, and...."

to

"The most famous music from the opera is the beautiful Flower Duet which was heard by millions when British Airways bastardised it for their commercials, and..."

[edit] Include the "Bell Song" and remove some trivia from the synopsis

The synopsis mentions only one work from Lakmé, the "Flower Duet", and I think this is primarily due to the wide exposure given to this lovely song in recent years by British Airway's advertisements. The aria L'Air des clochettes (the "Bell Song") seems to me to be the historically preeminant work and should in any event have a place of honor in a discussion of this opera.

The entry for Lakmé in my tattered copy of David Ewen's "Encyclopedia of the Opera" (1955) closes with the sentence, "... and it boasts one of the most famous coloratura arias in all opera, the Bell Song." The entry also mentions two pieces from the first Act, neither of which is the "Flower Duet". An article by Robert J Farr, found on www.musicweb-international.com, discusses the history of this opera and provides a list of early recordings (1907, '29, '44, '52), all of which are of the "Bell Song". So I think the current text has a point of view which is a bit too narrow and contemporary. We can blame the advertising industry.

I don't have enough confidence (or technical knowledge of opera) to edit these thoughts into the article, though perhaps they will inspire someone who does! In a similar vein, I would also suggest moving the list of derivative or third-party works from the last paragraph of the synopsis to a separate "Trivia" section at the end of the article. EnakMaya 15:08, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've removed all the trivia (let people put it in the Flower Duet article if they want to - there's a whole lot of stuff there already) and added in a bit about the Bell Song. Ideally, the synopsis should be expanded and the musical numbers incorporated where they appear rather than as a separate list, but that's for another day. --GuillaumeTell 21:42, 17 June 2007 (UTC)