Carmen Jones

Synopsis

Carmen Jones is the musical adaptation and update of Bizet's operatic score for Carmen, with an African-American setting. Oscar Hammerstein II wrote the book and dialogue, and the music, which is essentially Bizet's original score, was re-orchestrated by Robert Russell Bennett. Carmen Jones originally premiered in New York in 1943, running for over 500 performances.

Latest User Review

K McD - 4 September 2007:

I saw this on 28 August and was deeply disappointed! If it had not been for Brenda Edwards it would have been an almost total loss for me. This Carmen (Ms Maswangany)had no allure and less voice, perhaps she was starting to come down with the throat problem mentioned elsewhere. Joe couldn't decide whether to sing baritone or with a head voice in limp imitation of the movie soundtrack and Cindy Lou, much appreciated elsewhere I know, reminded me of a very annoying cheer leader with a chipmunk voice. My main problem was with the pointless tinkering of Jude Kelly. No one in Castro's Cuba would put on a musical extolling the US war effort, Carmen would either have worn knickers or not and it was pointless titilation to get her to put them on for work in front of us and to 'cut' the wonderful Ms Edwards remaining music - she SHOULD have been one of Carmen's side kicks not, as I presume, Billie Pasta which was the only interpretation I could put on what she was asked to do - what a difference her ballsy sound would have made to the thin rendition of the Chicago Train number, but perhaps that would have shown up even further the lack of tone provided by the 'star'....

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