Carmen Jones
Encyclopedia
Carmen Jones is a 1943 Broadway
musical
starring Muriel Smith
(alternating with Muriel Rahn
) in the title role, later made into a 1954 musical film
; the play also ran for a season in 1991 at London
's Old Vic
and most recently in London's Royal Festival Hall
in the Southbank Centre in 2007. It is an updating of the Georges Bizet
opera Carmen
in an African American
setting. (Bizet's opera was, in turn, based on the 1846 novella
by Prosper Mérimée
.) The Broadway musical was produced by Billy Rose
, using an all-black cast, and directed by Hassard Short
. Oscar Hammerstein II
wrote the book (dialogue) and lyrics, but stuck rather closely to Bizet's original music, which was re-orchestrated for a Broadway orchestra by Robert Russell Bennett
.
The original Broadway cast members were nearly all new to the stage; Kennedy and Muir write that on the first day of rehearsal only one member had ever been on a stage before.
The 1954 film
was adapted by Hammerstein and Harry Kleiner. It was directed by Otto Preminger
and starred Dorothy Dandridge
and Harry Belafonte
.
Joe's pass is cancelled in order for him to drive her to the next town to be handed over to the non-military police. Instead, she charms and seduces him, and he is put in the stockade for not delivering her to the authorities.
While she waits for Joe to be released from military prison, she hangs around Billy Pastor's jive cafe where she encounters boxer Husky Miller, who is instantly besotted with Carmen, calling her "heatwave".
She is initially uninterested. But her friends Frankie and Mert know that their invitation from Husky's manager to see him fight in Chicago depends on Carmen's being there, too.
Then Joe turns up at the cafe but gets into a fight with his sergeant, who is making a move on Carmen. The train ticket to Chicago originally given to Carmen offers them a way of avoiding the MPs. After a few days holed up with no money and no future with Joe, Carmen pays a visit to her two friends, now covered in diamonds and furs, at Husky's training camp. She is only looking for a loan, but they try to draw her to give up Joe and "go with the money" by staying with Husky.
Later, at Husky's apartment, Frankie reads Carmen's "cards", and reveals the Nine of Spades - the card of Death. In the belief that her days are numbered, Carmen gives in to Husky's advances, abandoning Joe for the luxurious life Husky can offer her.
Cindy Lou comes to look for Joe, but he is still in love with Carmen and spurns Cindy Lou. The night of Husky's title fight, Joe turns up to try and convince Carmen to come back to him, but when she rejects him, he kills her, thus making the cards' prophecy a reality.
translated the libretto
for Georges Bizet
's opera Carmen
from French into English for his Broadway production, "The music was pretty much left intact," explains Arts and Entertainment Editor Elisabeth Vincentelli, "but Hammerstein transferred the action to WWII
America. Carmen's tobacco factory became Carmen Jones' parachute
factory, bullfighter Escamillo became boxer Husky Miller, and so on. As if this weren't enough, there also was the 'small' detail of casting the show only with African-Americans."
Vincentelli goes on to say, "...many of the show's songs retain a surprising impact. The feverish intensity of 'Beat Out dat Rhythm on a Drum,' for instance, hasn't dimmed over the years, and the song's been covered by a wide variety of performers, from Pearl Bailey
and Marc Almond
to Mandy Patinkin
." The majority of the actors performing the songs in the film Carmen Jones were dubbed. Even singer Harry Belafonte
was dubbed (by LeVern Hutcherson), and Dorothy Dandridge
was dubbed by Marilyn Horne
(long before Horne became a famous singer).
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
musical
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
starring Muriel Smith
Muriel Smith (singer)
Muriel Burrell Smith was an American singer. In the 1940s and 1950s, she was a star of musical theater and opera, and was also the off-film ghost singer in several hit movies...
(alternating with Muriel Rahn
Muriel Rahn
Muriel Rahn was an American vocalist and actress. She co-founded the Rose McClendon Players with her husband, Dick Campbell and was one of the leading black concert singers of the mid-20th Century. She is perhaps best known for her starring role in the original Broadway production of Carmen Jones...
) in the title role, later made into a 1954 musical film
Musical film
The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...
; the play also ran for a season in 1991 at London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
's Old Vic
Old Vic
The Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...
and most recently in London's Royal Festival Hall
Royal Festival Hall
The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,900-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge. It is a Grade I listed building - the first post-war building to become so protected...
in the Southbank Centre in 2007. It is an updating of the Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet formally Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.During a...
opera Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
in an African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
setting. (Bizet's opera was, in turn, based on the 1846 novella
Carmen (novella)
"Carmen" is a novella by Prosper Mérimée, written and first published in 1845. It has been adapted into a number of dramatic works, including the famous opera by Georges Bizet.-Sources:...
by Prosper Mérimée
Prosper Mérimée
Prosper Mérimée was a French dramatist, historian, archaeologist, and short story writer. He is perhaps best known for his novella Carmen, which became the basis of Bizet's opera Carmen.-Life:...
.) The Broadway musical was produced by Billy Rose
Billy Rose
William "Billy" Rose was an American impresario, theatrical showman and lyricist. He is credited with many famous songs, notably "Me and My Shadow" , "It Happened in Monterey" and "It's Only a Paper Moon"...
, using an all-black cast, and directed by Hassard Short
Hassard Short
Hubert Edward Hassard Short , usually known as Hassard Short, was an actor, stage director, set designer and lighting designer in musical theatrewho directed over 50 Broadway and West End shows between 1920 and 1953...
. Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was an American librettist, theatrical producer, and theatre director of musicals for almost forty years. Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards and was twice awarded an Academy Award for "Best Original Song". Many of his songs are standard repertoire for...
wrote the book (dialogue) and lyrics, but stuck rather closely to Bizet's original music, which was re-orchestrated for a Broadway orchestra by Robert Russell Bennett
Robert Russell Bennett
Robert Russell Bennett was an American composer and arranger, best known for his orchestration of many well-known Broadway and Hollywood musicals by other composers such as Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, and Richard Rodgers. In 1957 and 2008, Bennett received Tony Awards...
.
The original Broadway cast members were nearly all new to the stage; Kennedy and Muir write that on the first day of rehearsal only one member had ever been on a stage before.
The 1954 film
Carmen Jones (film)
Carmen Jones is a 1954 American musical film produced and directed by Otto Preminger. The screenplay by Harry Kleiner is based on the libretto for the 1943 stage production of the same name by Oscar Hammerstein II, which was inspired by an adaptation of the 1845 Prosper Mérimée novella Carmen by...
was adapted by Hammerstein and Harry Kleiner. It was directed by Otto Preminger
Otto Preminger
Otto Ludwig Preminger was an Austro–Hungarian-American theatre and film director.After moving from the theatre to Hollywood, he directed over 35 feature films in a five-decade career. He rose to prominence for stylish film noir mysteries such as Laura and Fallen Angel...
and starred Dorothy Dandridge
Dorothy Dandridge
Dorothy Jean Dandridge was an American actress and popular singer, and was the first African-American to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress...
and Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte
Harold George "Harry" Belafonte, Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, actor and social activist. He was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s...
.
Plot
Parachute maker Carmen Jones makes a play for a "fly boy" Air Force man, Joe, who is in love with sweet Cindy Lou and about to marry her on a day pass when Carmen gets into a cat fight with another woman.Joe's pass is cancelled in order for him to drive her to the next town to be handed over to the non-military police. Instead, she charms and seduces him, and he is put in the stockade for not delivering her to the authorities.
While she waits for Joe to be released from military prison, she hangs around Billy Pastor's jive cafe where she encounters boxer Husky Miller, who is instantly besotted with Carmen, calling her "heatwave".
She is initially uninterested. But her friends Frankie and Mert know that their invitation from Husky's manager to see him fight in Chicago depends on Carmen's being there, too.
Then Joe turns up at the cafe but gets into a fight with his sergeant, who is making a move on Carmen. The train ticket to Chicago originally given to Carmen offers them a way of avoiding the MPs. After a few days holed up with no money and no future with Joe, Carmen pays a visit to her two friends, now covered in diamonds and furs, at Husky's training camp. She is only looking for a loan, but they try to draw her to give up Joe and "go with the money" by staying with Husky.
Later, at Husky's apartment, Frankie reads Carmen's "cards", and reveals the Nine of Spades - the card of Death. In the belief that her days are numbered, Carmen gives in to Husky's advances, abandoning Joe for the luxurious life Husky can offer her.
Cindy Lou comes to look for Joe, but he is still in love with Carmen and spurns Cindy Lou. The night of Husky's title fight, Joe turns up to try and convince Carmen to come back to him, but when she rejects him, he kills her, thus making the cards' prophecy a reality.
Music
Although Oscar Hammerstein IIOscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was an American librettist, theatrical producer, and theatre director of musicals for almost forty years. Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards and was twice awarded an Academy Award for "Best Original Song". Many of his songs are standard repertoire for...
translated the libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
for Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet formally Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.During a...
's opera Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
from French into English for his Broadway production, "The music was pretty much left intact," explains Arts and Entertainment Editor Elisabeth Vincentelli, "but Hammerstein transferred the action to WWII
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
America. Carmen's tobacco factory became Carmen Jones' parachute
Parachute
A parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag, or in the case of ram-air parachutes, aerodynamic lift. Parachutes are usually made out of light, strong cloth, originally silk, now most commonly nylon...
factory, bullfighter Escamillo became boxer Husky Miller, and so on. As if this weren't enough, there also was the 'small' detail of casting the show only with African-Americans."
Vincentelli goes on to say, "...many of the show's songs retain a surprising impact. The feverish intensity of 'Beat Out dat Rhythm on a Drum,' for instance, hasn't dimmed over the years, and the song's been covered by a wide variety of performers, from Pearl Bailey
Pearl Bailey
Pearl Mae Bailey was an American actress and singer. After appearing in vaudeville, she made her Broadway debut in St. Louis Woman in 1946. She won a Tony Award for the title role in the all-black production of Hello, Dolly! in 1968...
and Marc Almond
Marc Almond
Marc Almond is an English singer-songwriter and musician, who originally found fame as half of the seminal synthpop/New Wave duo Soft Cell...
to Mandy Patinkin
Mandy Patinkin
Mandel Bruce "Mandy" Patinkin is an award-winning American actor of stage and screen and a tenor vocalist. He is a noted interpreter of the musical works of Stephen Sondheim, and is best-known for his work in musical theatre, originating iconic roles such as Georges Seurat in Sunday in the Park...
." The majority of the actors performing the songs in the film Carmen Jones were dubbed. Even singer Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte
Harold George "Harry" Belafonte, Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, actor and social activist. He was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s...
was dubbed (by LeVern Hutcherson), and Dorothy Dandridge
Dorothy Dandridge
Dorothy Jean Dandridge was an American actress and popular singer, and was the first African-American to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress...
was dubbed by Marilyn Horne
Marilyn Horne
Marilyn Horne is an American mezzo-soprano opera singer. She specialized in roles requiring a large sound, beauty of tone, excellent breath support, and the ability to execute difficult coloratura passages....
(long before Horne became a famous singer).
Songs
The Broadway production Carmen Jones features the following songs:- Overture
- Lift 'Em Up and Put 'Em Down (Avec la garde montante in Bizet's original opera)
- Dat's Love (HabaneraHabanera (aria)In the form of habanera, there is a famous aria from the opera Carmen by Georges Bizet. It is sometimes referred to as "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle." . Its score was adapted from the habanera "El Arreglito," originally composed by the Spanish musician Sebastián Yradier...
in Bizet's opera) - You Talk Just like My Maw (Parle-moi de ma mère in Bizet's opera)
- Dere's a Cafe on de Corner (SeguidillaSeguidillaThe seguidilla is a quick, triple-time old Castillian folksong and dance form. The song is generally in the major key and often begins on an off-beat...
in Bizet's opera) - Beat Out Dat Rhythm on a Drum (Gypsy Song in Bizet's opera)
- Stan' Up and Fight (Toreador SongToreador SongThe Toreador Song is one of the most famous arias from the opera Carmen by Georges Bizet. Sung by the matador Escamillo, it describes various situations in the ring, the cheering of the crowds and the fame that comes with victory.-Text:-In popular culture:* The song is mocked during the "I lost my...
, also known as March of the Toreadors in Bizet's opera) - Whizzin' Away Along de Track (Quintet (Nous avons en tête affaire) in Bizet's opera)
- Dis Flower (Flower Song in Bizet's opera)
- De Cards Don't Lie (Card Song in Bizet's opera)
- My Joe (Micaela's Air in Bizet's opera)
- Dat's Our Man (Les voici in Bizet's opera)