There's plenty of elan in this playing. Yan Pascal Tortelier is concerned to bring out the swagger in much of the Carmen music, and this is something that one notices at once, because unlike Charles Dutoit and Leonard Slatkin he chooses to start with ''Les Toreadors'' rather than the Prelude to Act 1, which follows immediately after. In fact what he gives us is a mix of the two Carmen suites that together amount to 12 numbers in what is, as we are told, ''the chronological order of the opera''. No great harm in that, even if there is less contrast between the various pieces than is given us by the original compilation in two suites. But Tortelier's approach lacks variety, and while everything is acceptable it does not leap out of the loudspeakers in terms of musical character. There is a tendency to briskness and haste (the ''Danse boheme'' is a case in point) that becomes a little wearisome, and while the recording is big-scale and the Ulster Orchestra skilful, I look for more tonal subtleties in Bizet's score, and the brassy toreador himself in his ''Chanson'', here played as No. 7, is short on charm, as is the flautist immediately after in the famous Intermezzo.
The swagger is there no less in the two L'Arlesienne suites, here taken in the conventional order but although there is much to enjoy here too I would like to hear more sensitivity. The alternative coupling of this music by Dutoit on Decca is superior in both style and sound. In a selection of eight numbers from the Carmen music Slatkin (Telarc/Conifer) is lively and enjoyable, and the Beecham account with the RPO of the two L'Arlesienne suites (EMI)—three decades old though it is—has a special crispness, refinement and stylistic flair and if you want them coupled with Bizet's youthful Symphony it is still a safe recommendation.'