Written By: Oscar Hammerstein 2nd

CARMEN JONES is not an opera. It is a musical play based on an opera. CARMEN JONES however, does prove this much: that a surprisingly large number of the regular theatre-going public will enjoy operatic music if you let them in on the story. The most interesting indication that opera is not 'over the heads of the theatrical public' is the last scene of CARMEN JONES. Throughout this distinctly 'operatic' sequence, the audience is held as at no other time in the evening. They are tense and still in their seats. The characters look their parts. And they are acting as well as singing. They are not waving their arms and pounding the stage like heavy-footed mastodons. They are not using that phony sob-in-the-throat trick of grand-opera singers in emotional passages. They are portraying two human beings in terrible trouble, two confused souls moving toward their destruction with every word they sing. The audience, knowing what the words mean, are held in a tight grip of interest until the tragedy finds its inevitable end and Carmen sinks to the floor, stabbed by her crazed heart-torn lover.