Word: carmens
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Carmen Jones (music by Georges Bizet; book & lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II; produced by Billy Rose) turns the opera that Sir Thomas Beecham once called "the sturdiest oak in the operatic forest" into the most brilliant show on Broadway. If Bizet's Carmen and the all-Negro Carmen Jones live, artistically, on different sides of the railroad tracks, they nevertheless represent the shortest distance between one exciting kind of job and another. Drastic changes have been made. Carmen has been retired in a kiln, not warmed over in an oven. There is no capricious tinkering for tinkering...
Bizet's pulsing score remains intact-unswung, unsyncopated, unsentimentalized. (The recitatif has been ripped out, but Bizet did not write it: Carmen was originally a musical drama, not grand opera). Carmen's vivid plot remains unchanged. So does the inner nature of its people. But the scene of Carmen Jones is a U.S. Southern town where hip-swaying, head-tossing Carmen Jones works in a parachute factory. The Don José who wins her, loves her, loses her and kills her is a harassed M.P. corporal named Joe. The Micaela who loves and loses him is country-bred...
...hint of Spain, no highfalutin of opera, clings to these people. Oscar Hammerstein's lively book uses straight Negro idiom, finds room-and here Carmen Jones strikes out boldly for itself-for a pulsating Negro gaiety. Not into Lillas Pastia's dim tavern, but into a packed and glittering night spot, does Husky Miller make his first royal entrance. Instead of hiding out in a smugglers' den, the Carmen Jones crowd cavort and click their heels at a swanky Negro country club...
...leading roles are competently handled, but neither draw the attention that Carlotta Franzell attracts as Cindy Lou. Her clear soprano was applauded almost as vigorously as if she had been the lead at the Met. Luther Saxon, as Joe, plays the victim of Carmen's seductive charm with convincing sincerity, but Muriel Smith's singing falls definitely short of excellence...
Certain parts of "Carmen Jones," such as the night club and country club scenes, border on typical Rose extravaganza, especially in the lushness of the costumes. Still, the total effect of it is in good taste and quite enjoyable...