Both these performances are greatly preferable to Karajan's DG recording, and choice between them is hard. If, a little to my surprise, I come down now in favour of the Maazel, it is largely because, as is so often the case, a reading that derives from some sort of 'real' occasion, in this instance a film, has just that shade more conviction than one deriving solely from the studio. You sense an involvement by the principals in their fate, essential in this work, that simply can't be manufactured under studio conditions. Indeed, in another respect, that is even truer. Decca's attempts at stage effects do not sound properly theatrical; by comparison, the atmospherics off the soundtrack on the Erato version, and the intimacy of the dialogue, less of it than on Decca, do create the feeling of a live performance.
Then the Decca recording is very big and reverberant, matching the character of Solti's interpretation, which is closer to Karajan's than to Maazel's, and so nearer to grand opera. Maazel, as I suggested in my first review, adopts a lighter, more airy approach, rhythms finely pointed. With a French orchestra he comes much closer to the authentic opera-comique tradition, which can still be heard in the old Cluytens recording of 1950, reissued on LP by Pathe Marconi and available as an import. By the same token Migenes Johnson is a more offhand, suggestive Carmen than Troyanos, with more vital diction, which is not to say that Troyanos doesn't sing the part or indeed enact it with conviction; it is simply that you sense she is having to give a performance for the microphone, whereas Migenes Johnson is performing Carmen, as it were, on stage.
Similarly, Domingo is much more involved as Jose for Maazel than he was for Solti; his phrasing more refined, his tone more intense. As I commented before, this is probably the best of his three recordings of the part (he is Abbado's Jose as well for DG on LP). With Micaela and Escamillo, the balance tilts Solti's way. Dame Kiri is far easier to listen to than Esham, and she presents the more credible character of sweetness combined with determination. Van Dam is a more secure Toreador than Raimondi, though also a slightly more placid one. I never care much for the way Raimondi more than occasionally slides up to notes. The smaller roles are also better sung chez Solti.
Where the recording is concerned, I certainly prefer the leaner Erato sound, but there is little wrong with the Decca, which provides the better booklet: the Erato English translation is, to say the least, quaint. So there it is: choice is difficult. I can only report that I listened to Maazel with ever-increasing enjoyment, whereas I found the Decca less compelling. You may even like to wait until the Abbado/Berganza Carmen arrives on CD, as surely it must before long. That performance, like the Maazel, derives from a 'live' occasion, the famous Faggioni/Edinburgh staging, and is the most tautly conceived of all, but neither Solti nor Maazel is to be ignored. Certainly CD adds to their considerable merits.'