From Bizet to Beyoncé: Five surprising twists on Carmen

7 February 2018

The sexy and scandalous Carmen simply refuses to remain in the opera world, having flirted with ballet, hip hop and even rock and roll. As the Royal Opera House presents their new cabaret version, we remember other inspired adaptations of one of the most popular operas of all time.

Olivier award winner Barrie Kosky brings a cabaret influence to the ROH's new production of Carmen. The Australian director has removed much of the usual sets and effects and instead has opted for a minimal look, almost entirely in black and white.

Gone are the expected Spanish clichés and stereotypes that have become synonymous with the character, with rural Spain being conveyed with simply a large staircase and an empty floor.

With her dark eye-shadow and pale make-up - plus a Sally Bowles style hat - this portrayal of Carmen evokes the spirit of larger-than-life cabaret stars, especially when she acknowledges her own murder with a knowing shrug to the audience. Even the dialogue is stripped back; there is no spoken word between the characters, apart from a narrator guiding the show along here and there.

This cabaret-styled and simplified retelling of the timeless opera runs until 16 March 2018 at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, a venue where Carmen has been performed over 500 times since its creation in the 19th Century... so Kosky is certainly in good company for his version of the tale.

No stranger to radical retellings of classic opera, Kosky previously directed Komische Oper Berlin's production of The Magic Flute in 2015.

Carmen: A Hip Hopera was considered an exciting move by MTV when it was released in 2001. Though the mash-up of 2000s hiphop and Bizet's opera feels cringe-inducingly dated by today's standards, it is notable for being the first acting role for music superstar Beyoncé.

Back before her solo career, but still famous as part of the band Destiny's Child, the young Beyoncé Knowles starred as Carmen Brown, now reworked to be an irresistible wannabe-actress in Philadelphia instead of a gypsy in rural Seville.

Mekhi Phifer of ER fame played the Don José role, now a local cop called Derek Hill, and the cream of early 2000s MTV starred too, with appearances by Wyclef Jean, Mos Def and Li'l Bow Wow.

Beyoncé went on to slightly more successful acting roles in films such as 2006's Dreamgirls, but surely none would have been as experimental with their editing as the cheesy music-video wipes and repeated cuts of her Carmen. The hip hopera even inspired imitators; perhaps the most notorious being R Kelly's opus Trapped in the Closet, a saga in 22 parts in which the rapper musically recounts his own experience hiding in a married woman's bedroom wardrobe.

Matthew Bourne’s hugely successful ballet The Car Man premiered in 2000, loosely adapting the story of Bizet's opera to a 1960s American diner and garage, and filling it to the brim with sensual energy.

The British choreographer and director, known for his all-male production of Swan Lake, combined Bizet's music with elements of the plot from James M. Cain's novel The Postman Always Rings Twice. The seductive gypsy of this version is a man, Luca, a sexually ravenous drifter who arrives in the small town of Harmony, USA and soon engages in sordid relationships with both his boss' frustrated wife and with a shy young man who works with him at the garage. The story is told exclusively through dance, and features hot-blooded sexuality in its high-energy choreography.

Critics raved about the performance and since its inception The Car Man has enjoyed revivals in 2007 and 2015, toured the UK, been shown in 150 cinemas worldwide and released on DVD, making it one of the most successful Carmen adaptations on our list.

Carmen is a favourite of the world of dance: choreographer Carlos Acosta has also used ballet to interpret Bizet’s classic opera in 2015, while Spanish director Carlos Saura used flamenco dancing to tell the story in his BAFTA-winning 1983 film adaptation.

Carmen Jones is Oscar Hammerstein's 1943 Broadway musical adaptation of the opera that brings the action to America’s Deep South during WW2. This was the first African-American adaption of Carmen and featured new English lyrics to replace the French of the original.

Hammerstein’s Carmen works in a parachute factory rather than a cigarette factory, and her Don José is American Air force man Joe who goes AWOL with her until she meets boxer Husky Miller, the updated Matador. It saw great stage success, and with the most popular version being the 1954 film version which saw Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Dandridge in the lead roles. Dandridge received the first Oscar nomination for an African-American Actress for her performance.

As can be heard in the 1954 film's trailer, Bizet's music gets a Broadway update too, with Carmen's famous Habanera becoming Dat's Love, and the iconic Toreador Song switching from bullfighting to boxing and being re-titled Stand Up and Fight!, which itself has gone on to be covered by Sammy Davis Jr.

Perhaps most surprisingly of all the popular opera has also inspired an album of rock music, The Naked Carmen by David Hess and John Corigliano, which was released in 1970.

After the success of Andrew Lloyd Webber's rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, Mercury Records wanted to see if they could find a profitable way to get their classical and popular music departments working together. Hess and Corigliano were asked to combine Bizet's compositions for the modern music scene, and the result was the ‘electric rock opera', The Naked Carmen.

While it did not enjoy the success that Jesus Christ Superstar did, the country and western version of the famous Toreador song called Playin' The Game was well received and was the stand out track.

Corigliano went on to enjoy huge success in the music world winning several Grammys and an Oscar for Best Original Score in 2000 for the soundtrack to The Red Violin. Meanwhile, Hess saw success having written songs for Elvis Presley, including Make Me Know You’re Mine.

Listen to Front Row's discussion on the many adaptations of Bizet's most famous opera.

Barrie Kosky's production of Carmen runs from 6 February - 16 March 2018 at the Royal Opera House in London. A performance will also be live-streamed into selected cinemas on 6 March 2018; for more information, see the ROH website.