50 Favourite Musicals: 29: CARMEN JONES (1943) (Georges Bizet, Oscar Hammerstein II)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life:

First performed: 1943, Broadway Theatre, NY
First seen by me: 1992, Old Vic, London

Productions seen: one

Score: Georges Bizet, Oscar Hammerstein II
Book: Oscar Hammerstein II

Plot:  At a parachute factory during WWII, Joe, an air-force recruit, is ordered to escort the fiery Carmen Jones to the police in the next town.  Carmen seduces him however and escapes, resulting in Joe being confined to the stockade.  Joe and Carmen are reunited on his release but she has already attracted the attention of boxer Husky Miller who is offering the highlife in Chicago... 

Five memorable numbers: DAT'S LOVE, BEAT OUT DAT RHYTHM ON A DRUM, THE CARD SONG, DIS FLOWER, WHIZZIN' AWAY ALONG THE TRACK

In these earnest, crashingly obvious days of re-imagined, gender-fluid, re-written reinterpretations of classic works, the idea of re-imagining a classic opera as an all-black musical would be guaranteed a slot at the National, the Young Vic or the Almeida.  Too late hipsters, that ship sailed 76 years ago with the Broadway premiere of Oscar Hammerstein II's updated version of Bizet's "Carmen", CARMEN JONES.  Hammerstein took the Bizet opera and re-wrote the lyrics and book to update it to a drab WWII parachute factory in North Carolina.  CARMEN JONES will always lose out to the earlier PORGY AND BESS in status as it does not have the imprimatur of the opera house, although both roughly tell the same tale of a doggedly dull man in love with a flighty woman.  For me - and despite Hammerstein's dated Dat, Dem and Dis lines for his characters - CARMEN JONES wins out as a perfect re-imagining of a classic work and in the transformation, becoming it's own work of art.  Carmen - fiery, sly, unattainable - is a magnificent character and Hammerstein is clever enough to give her the "Card Song" where her true tragic independence is shown, determined to live life to her rules no matter what the consequences down the line, and she becomes a powerfully sympathetic heroine.  And oh those songs... "Dat's Love", "Beat Out Dat Rhythm On A Drum",  "Whizzin' Away Along The Track", "Dis Flower" and the afore-mentioned "Card Song" jump out of the score like firecrackers.  I finally saw the musical on stage when Simon Callow directed the UK premiere - astonishingly nearly 50 years after it's Broadway premiere - and loved it's inherent theatrical power with a magnetic lead performance by Sharon Benson.  Otto Preminger's film version remains marvellously powerful with stand-out performances from Pearl Bailey and Dorothy Dandridge, the first black actress to be nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award.  The film also has the strange claim that of the five lead performers, three were dubbed.  However what this anomaly gave us was the fantastic vocal performance of Marilyn Horne as Carmen, only 20 years old and her first major job before becoming one of America's great opera singers.  By the final scene, Dandridge's acting and Horne's singing fuse into one of the great film musical performances.

There is precious little video on stage productions of CARMEN JONES so here is the splashy trailer for Preminger's film...