Word: recitatif
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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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...
...moved rapidly, and mingled with my fellows so that I couldn't be singled out and booted. I was a little too flustered to listen when he lights were shooting up, but I have a vague remembrance of hearing a surprised and un-operatic note creep into Martinelli's recitatif when the scene suddenly changed from evening to high noon with no plausible excuse...