Carmen On Screen

A filmographic and bibliographic guide to the screen adaptations of the story of Carmen. 'Carmen' on Screen is a filmographic and bibliographic guide for scholars interested in the different versions of the story of Carmen in film since her original appearance in Mérimée's novella and its operatic adaptation byBizet. With over 110 screen versions between 1894 and 2005, it is the most adapted narrative in film. The volume offers: chronological listings of 82 feature films with credits and annotations of scholarly articles, selected citations of reviews and news articles, and listings of more general works on film adaptations of opera; works on the novella or on the opera; and, finally, lists of works on the 12 major female and 8 major male stars in the 82feature films. ANN DAVIES lectures in Spanish Studies and Film at the University of Newcastle; PHIL POWRIE is Professor of French Cultural Studies at the University of Newcastle.

Bizet's Carmen Uncovered exposes the myths and stereotypes that so often surround this much loved opera by exploring its first staging, and the particularly Spanish contexts in which the opera was conceived, written, and staged.

Carmen and the Staging of Spain explores the Belle Époque fascination with Spanish entertainment that refashioned Bizet's opera and gave rise to an international "Carmen industry." Authors Michael Christoforidis and Elizabeth Kertesz challenge the notion of Carmen as an unchanging exotic construct, tracing the ways in which performers and productions responded to evolving fashions for Spanish style from its 1875 premiere to 1915. Focusing on selected realizations of the opera in Paris, London and New York, Christoforidis and Kertesz explore the cycles of influence between the opera and its parodies; adaptations in spoken drama, ballet and film; and the panorama of flamenco, Spanish dance, and musical entertainments. Their findings also uncover Carmen's dynamic interaction with issues of Hispanic identity against the backdrop of Spain's changing international fortunes. The Spanish response to this now most-Spanish of operas is illuminated by its early reception in Madrid and Barcelona, adaptations to local theatrical genres, and impact on Spanish composers of the time. A series of Spanish Carmens, from opera singers Elena Sanz and Maria Gay to the infamous music-hall star La Belle Otero, had a crucial influence on the interpretation of the title role. Their stories provide a fresh context for the book's reappraisal of leading Carmens of the era, including Emma Calvé and Geraldine Farrar.

This is the first book-length study of Carmen Miranda in English. It traces her origins as a radio singer, recording artist and film star in Brazil in the 1930s, before exploring in depth her Hollywood screen roles and the construction of her long-lasting star persona in the USA.

Since Prosper Mérimée and Georges Bizet (with his librettists Meilhac and Halévy) brought the figure of the Spanish Carmen to prominence in the nineteenth century an astonishing eighty or so film versions of the story have been made. This collection of essays gathers together a unique body of scholarly critique focused on that Carmen narrative in film. It covers the phenomenon from a number of aspects: cultural studies, gender studies, studies in race and representation, musicology, film history, and the history of performance. The essays take us from the days of silent film to twenty-first century hip-hop style, showing, through a variety of theoretical and historical perspectives that, despite social and cultural transformations—particularly in terms of gender, sexuality and race—remarkably little has changed in terms of basic human desires and anxieties, at least as they are represented in this body of films. The conception of Carmen’s independent sexuality as a source of danger both to men (and occasionally women) and to respectable society has been a constant. Nor has sexual and ethnic otherness lost its appeal. On the other hand, the corpus of Carmen films is more than a simple recycling of stereotypes and each engages newly with the social and cultural issues of their time.

Since Prosper Mérimée and Georges Bizet (with his librettists Meilhac and Halévy) brought the figure of the Spanish Carmen to prominence in the nineteenth century an astonishing eighty or so film versions of the story have been made. This collection of essays gathers together a unique body of scholarly critique focused on that Carmen narrative in film. It covers the phenomenon from a number of aspects: cultural studies, gender studies, studies in race and representation, musicology, film history, and the history of performance. The essays take us from the days of silent film to twenty-first century hip-hop style, showing, through a variety of theoretical and historical perspectives that, despite social and cultural transformations--particularly in terms of gender, sexuality and race--remarkably little has changed in terms of basic human desires and anxieties, at least as they are represented in this body of films. The conception of Carmen's independent sexuality as a source of danger both to men (and occasionally women) and to respectable society has been a constant. Nor has sexual and ethnic otherness lost its appeal. On the other hand, the corpus of Carmen films is more than a simple recycling of stereotypes and each engages newly with the social and cultural issues of their time.

From classic films like Carmen Jones to contemporary works like The Diary of Sally Hemmings and U-Carmen eKhayelitsa, American and South African artists and composers have used opera to reclaim black people's place in history. Naomi André draws on the experiences of performers and audiences to explore this music's resonance with today's listeners. Interacting with creators and performers, as well as with the works themselves, André reveals how black opera unearths suppressed truths. These truths provoke complex, if uncomfortable, reconsideration of racial, gender, sexual, and other oppressive ideologies. Opera, in turn, operates as a cultural and political force that employs an immense, transformative power to represent or even liberate. Viewing opera as a fertile site for critical inquiry, political activism, and social change, Black Opera lays the foundation for innovative new approaches to applied scholarship.

In the 1970s, especially after Franco's death in 1975, Spanish cinema was bursting at the seams. Numerous film directors broke free from the ancient taboos which had reigned under the dictatorship. They introduced characters who, through their bodies, transgress the traditional borders of social, cultural and sexual identities. Post- Franco cinema exhibits women, homosexuals, transsexuals, and delinquents in new and challenging ways.Under Franco rule, all of these dissident bodies were 'lost'. Here, they reflect new mythological figures, inhabiting an idealised body form (a prototypical body).