2.2 (above average)
Sunday 15 August 2010
Tune of the Day: Seguidilla
from “Carmen” by Georges Bizet, arranged for Flute solo
The Seguidilla aria forms part of Act I of the famous French opera Carmen by Georges Bizet. The beautiful gypsy, Carmen, sings it in an attempt to seduce her captor, the soldier Don José, into going with her to her friend Lillas Pastia's inn.
After Bizet's death, this number was also included by Ernest Guiraud in Carmen Suite No. 1, the only movement of the suite that began as an aria.
More generally, a seguidilla is a quick triple-time Castillian folksong and dance form, whose name is a diminutive of seguida, from seguir, i.e. “to follow”.