Complete with spear-carriers and prima donnas, grand opera was launching a mass assault on television. ABC started it with ponderous telecasts from the Metropolitan of Otello and Der Rosenkavalier. Last week, in the first of a series, CBS and Artistic Director Lawrence Tibbett proved that opera could be sprightly as well as tuneful, in an 80-minute version of Bizet's Carmen on the Opera Television Theater.
Gladys Swarthout's fiery Carmen was played without the exaggerated gestures common to the Met's gigantic stage; Tenor Robert Rounseville brought a matinée idol's profile to Don José, but obviously...