Music
Although Oscar Hammerstein II translated the libretto for Georges Bizet's opera Carmen from French into English for his Broadway production, "The music was pretty much left intact," explains Arts and Entertainment Editor Elisabeth Vincentelli, "but Hammerstein transferred the action to WWII America. Carmen's tobacco factory became Carmen Jones' parachute factory, bullfighter Escamillo became boxer Husky Miller, and so on. As if this weren't enough, there also was the 'small' detail of casting the show only with African-Americans."
Vincentelli goes on to say, "...many of the show's songs retain a surprising impact. The feverish intensity of 'Beat Out dat Rhythm on a Drum,' for instance, hasn't dimmed over the years, and the song's been covered by a wide variety of performers, from Pearl Bailey and Marc Almond to Mandy Patinkin." The majority of the actors performing the songs in the film Carmen Jones were dubbed. Even singer Harry Belafonte was dubbed (by LeVern Hutcherson), and Dorothy Dandridge was dubbed by Marilyn Horne (long before Horne became a famous singer).
Read more about this topic: Carmen Jones
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“We live in the mind, in ideas, in fragments. We no longer drink in the wild outer music of the streets—we remember only.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“Noble and wise men once believed in the music of the spheres: noble and wise men still continue to believe in the “moral significance of existence.” But one day even this sphere-music will no longer be audible to them! They will wake up and take note that their ears were dreaming.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Did the kiss of Mother Mary
Put that music in her face?
Yet she goes with footstep wary,
Full of earth’s old timid grace.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)