Georges Bizet - Ivan IV - Ouvre ton coeur a l’amour (Michel Senechal)

Though Bizet is most certainly best known for his classical treatment of the Spanish gypsy, Carmen, his career included several dramatic works of various success both from a commercial and a creative point of view but which, nevertheless, fell out of the active repertory, only to be rediscovered in recent times. One of these pieces is a grand opera, “Ivan IV“. Hailing from the early 1860s and composed just before “Les pecheurs de perles“ it represents an attempt by Bizet to use the Meyerbeerian idiom to enliven a rather illogical story of a romantic entanglement at the court of the Russian Tzar: the story is about Ivan the Terrible, his requited love for a Circassian maiden and court intrigue that ensnares her father and brother in an assassination plot; Ivan appears at the end to save the siblings and replace them on the gallows with the evil courtier, Yorloff. It wasn’t a success (perhaps, it just wasn’t the right time, as grand opera was falling out of favor after the poor showi