Carmen Jones Original Broadway Cast 1943 Film Soundtrack 1954
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120875bk Carmen:MASTER 3+3 4/12/08 9:08 PM Page 2 Carmen Jones Original Broadway Cast 1943 Film Soundtrack 1954 ACT I 9. Dis Flower 4:02 14. Dat’s Love 3:41 18. Duet And Finale 5:14 (Flower Song) Marilyn Horne & Chorus LeVern Hutcherson, Marilyn Horne 1. Prelude 1:59 Luther Saxon 15. Dere’s A Cafe On De Corner 1:52 (Dorothy Dandridge & Harry Belafonte 2. Opening Scene Introducing Lift ’Em speaking) Up And Put ’Em Down 2:27 ACT II Marilyn Horne (Changing of the Guard) 10. De Cards Don’t Lie 4:20 16. Beat Out Dat Rhythm On A Drum Orchestra & Chorus conducted by Chorus (Card Scene) 4:57 Herschel Burke Gilbert RCA Victor LM 1881 3. Dat’s Love 3:41 Muriel Smith with June Hawkins, Pearl Bailey Recorded 1954, Hollywood (Habanera) Jessica Russell, Urylee Leonardos, 17. Card Song 4:40 Muriel Smith Ethel White, Sibol Cain Marilyn Horne, Pearl Bailey & Chorus 4. You Talk Just Like My Maw 4:14 11. My Joe 4:20 (Don José–Micaela Duet) (Micaela’s Air) Carlotta Franzell, Luther Saxon Carlotta Franzell Transfers & Production: David Lennick • Digital Restoration: Tom Brown Cover photo © Maxfx / Dreamstime.com 5. Dere’s A Cafe On De Corner 4:24 12. Dat’s Our Man 3:28 (Seguidilla) (Opening Chorus, Act IV) Muriel Smith, Luther Saxon Chorus 6. Beat Out Dat Rhythm On A Drum 13. Finale: Scene – Joe And Carmen 3:47 Also available in the Naxos Broadway Musicals series ... 4:03 Muriel Smith, Luther Saxon & Chorus (Gypsy Song) Orchestrations by Robert Russell Bennett June Hawkins & Chorus; Cozy Cole, drums Conducted by Joseph Littau 7. Stan’ Up And Fight 3:55 Chorus under the direction of Robert Shaw (Toreador Song) DECCA 29133/8 in Album DA 366 Glenn Bryant & Chorus Recorded 17–20 January 1944, New York 8. Whizzin’ Away Along De Track 4:16 (Quintet) Muriel Smith, June Hawkins, Jessica Russell, C Dick Montgomery, Randall Steplight M 8.120847 8.120877 8.120878 These titles are not for retail sale in the USA Y 5 8.120875 6 8.120875 K 120875bk Carmen:MASTER 3+3 4/12/08 9:08 PM Page 1 Escamillo, the star bull-fighter, we now had the stage late in 1942, but his funding fell was labouring in the Philadelphia Navy Yard dwell uneasily in the land of appropriated Carmen Jones Husky Miller, a prize fighting champ. The through and no one else stepped in to fill the and Glenn Bryant, the powerful Husky Miller, racial voice, but the power of the overall Music of Georges Bizet • Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II Spanish career soldier Don Jose became Joe, a breach. took a leave of absence from his regular job vision, the thrilling voices and the splendid Original Broadway Cast 1943 • Film Soundtrack 1954 (excerpts) black corporal in the U. S. Army. Although disappointed, Hammerstein didn’t with the New York Police Department to work orchestrations of Robert Russell Bennett still And Carmen? She became Carmen Jones, the mind unduly, because he was deeply immersed on the show. shine through. Although the tragic story of Carmen may productions of the time and the archaic same seductive outcast who would dance her in the new project with Rodgers. Hassard Short, the veteran of many Also on this recording are five selections show the perils of following your natural translations that were employed stood in the way into any man’s heart and leave destruction And after Oklahoma! became a giant hit spectacular Broadway shows, came in to do the from the soundtrack of the 1954 film version, instincts too passionately, the musical Carmen way of their success. behind. following its opening on 31 March 1943, staging, aided greatly by the sensual produced and directed by the tyrannical Otto Jones demonstrates the rewards of just such a He came by his operatic passion honestly, Hammerstein went for his structure directly Hammerstein would find that anything he had choreography of Eugene Loring and the bold Preminger. The filming process was a path. because his grandfather, Oscar Hammerstein I, to the libretto of the original 1875 opera by touched suddenly became more attractive. costumes of Raoul Pene du Bois which “colour- legendarily tempestuous one, especially between When Oscar Hammerstein II sat pensively at had devoted his life to the cause of Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, which in The extravagant impresario Billy Rose got a coded” every scene. Preminger and his star, Dorothy Dandridge, his farm in Doylestown, Pa. in January 1942, his popularizing opera and had spent several turn was based on the 1845 novella by Prosper copy of the script from Hammerstein, who held When the show opened on Broadway on who were having an affair during the shooting. thoughts must have turned to the non-stop fortunes opening a series of eleven opera Mérimée. little hope that the man who specialized in 2 December 1943, the critics were unanimous As was the custom of the time, most of the string of flops he had endured in New York, houses and going head to head in a war with He later called it “a model of musical drama aquacades and zany revues would enjoy the in their praise, with Hobe Morrison of Variety voices in the film were dubbed, for those who Hollywood and London over the past decade. the Metropolitan Opera. architecture” and only made slight changes to work. capturing the tone best when he said that couldn’t sing – Dandridge was voiced by a very Because not since 1932’s Music in the Air And now his grandson was willing to pick the basic plot and structure. What Hammerstein didn’t know was that Hammerstein was at “the peak of his career”, young Marilyn Horne – and those who sang in had the once triumphant lyricist behind Show up where he had left off, listening to a With over 65 years of distance bringing Rose had a mother who adored opera and she and although not rivaling Oklahoma!, Carmen a different style – Harry Belafonte subbed in for Boat written anything that had met with favour recording of Carmen from La Scala over and changing times and attitudes, some of had sung Carmen to him all during his Jones still ran for an impressive 503 by LeVern Hutcherson who had played Joe in from the critics or the public. over until he knew it by heart. Hammerstein’s lyrics for the black characters in childhood. When Rose finished reading the performances on Broadway. the 1946 revival. Dandridge and Belafonte can As Hammerstein himself later put it, “After Hammerstein’s next choice was where to the work may now seem contrived (“Love ain’ script, he called up Hammerstein and said In an act still remembered to this day, nevertheless be heard here speaking briefly in going through such disappointment trying to situate his adaptation. In a flash of inspiration, nobody’s angel child” in Dat’s Love, his version “You’ve written the freshest musical anyone Hammerstein chose the occasion of having the final scene. write what I thought the public wanted, I he realized that the blacks in the southern of the famous “Habanera”), but there are wrote and I want to produce it”. two giant hits on Broadway to express himself Still coming through loud and clear and decided to write something just for myself”. states of America had a unique culture, sequences such as Stand Up and Fight But easier said than done. The work called with customary modesty. distinctive, however, is a decidedly undubbed Hammerstein had been a lifelong opera fan distinctive dialect and oppressive set of social (Hammerstein’s answer to the “Toreador Song”) for a cast of over a hundred black singers Placing an ad in the year-end edition of Pearl Bailey, who makes Beat Out Dat and as far back as 1934, after witnessing a problems, just like the gypsies in the original which still ring sound and true. capable of handling a score of operatic Variety, he didn’t mention his triumphs, but Rhythm on a Drum an exciting highlight. concert version of Carmen at the Hollywood Carmen. It took Hammerstein about seven months to magnitude. instead listed all of the flops he had created in Carmen Jones remains one of the most Bowl, had suggested to MGM that it might make America had just joined the Second World complete his adaptation and shortly after Hammerstein enlisted the help of jazz expert the previous decade, following them with the inventive and consistent attempts to modernize a smashing film. War the previous month and Hammerstein also finishing, he was united by the Theatre Guild John Hammond Jr who had deep ties within line, “I’ve done it before and I can do it again!” a classic opera and this recording stands as a It only took twenty years for that to happen. realized the current wartime climate would with Richard Rodgers to start a new the black community and he found the cast The original cast recording can’t capture the solid reminder of its success. As Hammerstein slowly set to work that perfectly mirror that of Spain in the period of partnership and begin work on the musical heard on this original cast recording in some visual splendour of the production and – as long, snowy winter, he was driven by his secret Carmen. version of Green Grow the Lilacs called very unlikely places. noted before – some of the lyrics may now Richard Ouzounian belief that opera could reach a much larger So the cigarette factory in Seville of the Oklahoma! which would make theatre history.