Carmen the musical

[Broadwaywest2]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 12:30pm

I just saw the website for this show. It looks fantastic. Visually this is going to be a stunner. I really would love to see this. Does anyone now when tickets go on sale? Or is anyone going?


http://www.carmenthemusical.com/

[musicalfandukie]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 12:44pm

I actually really enjoyed the sample tracks of the music.

[Fenchurch]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 12:51pm

Again, this is like making the MAgic FLute a musical, is it new music? or are they using Bizet's music? If not Bizet's music, then why do it? The story is not unique, any other story of love and revenge would do just as well.

Are they basing it on Bizet's opera or on Merimee's play?

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 1:20pm

Fenchurch - The answers to all your questions are provided in the link.

Sounds interesting. I wish I could get out to La Jolla sometime. They always premiere interesting new works. I wish I could have seen Zhivago and Elmer Gantry. My parents saw Gantry and RAVED about it. They always wondered why it never went to Broadway.

[zepka102]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 1:39pm

I think the set designs look amazing. And some of the demo songs sound great. I especially like the second one... it's very catchy.

[Fenchurch]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 1:50pm

Interesting, nice to see women on the creative team.
Im glad they're steering away from any references to Bizet.

[Piercemn]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 1:51pm

Ah, Oscar Hammerstein already did this. It's called Carmen Jones and the movie shows up on AMC all the time. The film version stars Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte. I think a revival of that would be better than a new version.

For the record, there was a musical version of Gantry done in the early 1970s. It starred Robert Shaw and lasted one night. Check the Bible, that is, Not Since Carrie.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 1:59pm

Two main differences between this and Carmen Jones:

1. Carmen Jones used an abbreviated and reorchestrated Bizet score with lyrics by Hammerstein. This musical has a completely original score.

2. Carmen Jones revised the story setting it in mid-1940s Chicago. This musical is adapted from the original story.

Yeah, I knew about the 1970s Gantry, but the La Jolla show was an entirely new production. Nearly everyone I spoke to who saw it, loved it. I was just curious as to why it seemed to die on the vine.

[Fenchurch]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 2:06pm

Pierece,

Carmen Jones was interesting, but kinda sad.
At best it's exoticism imposed on American Sterotypes.
At worse it's blatantly racist, but either way it's not worth the paper the score was printed on compared to Bizet's original.

[Trish2]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 2:15pm

I'm sorry, but those snippets of the choreography look dreadful and pedestrian. Then again, the choreogrpaher also wrote the book. She was a former Broadway dancer who wrote the show, got Dragone involved and is now the choreographer. Great business sense, but hardly anything unique looking in the dance dept. Ho-hum. I only coment on this aspect as we know that all Dragones shows are of a visual nature and this woman seems pretty green.

[misschung]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 2:54pm

what's the deal with the big cross in the 4th picture

this looks a little too apocolypto to me, but I'd still be interested in seeing it. I wonder if it will ever tour