Every day in January promises another Tra la la song to sing when you drink a bit of our Trah Lah Lah wine. But yesterday’s ding dong song was so over the top ridiculous, I feel like we should get back to something more serious.

Today’s song is from Bizet’s opera Carmen. The first bit is dancing and instrumental, but the Tra la la’s come in around the 2:00 mark. And once they start, they don’t stop.

That’s Agnes Baltsa singing “Les tringles des sistres tintaient”. Since nobody knows what the heck a sistres is or what it would sound like when it taintaients, it’s often called the “Gypsy Song”. A sistre is a type of percussive instrument like a tambourine that has sort of small metal rods that will clink together. Tintaient is a form of past tense for light ringing/jingling (like when you ring a bell without letting the clapper hit the side of the bell).

The more famous performance of this song is probably Maria Callas, but then you don’t get to see video of them dancing around tensely to the instrumental. I have to make choices!

Anyway, if you’re too serious to ask people to touch your tra la la, your ding ding dong, then you can sing some operatic Tra la la’s from Carmen instead.