“DixieCarmen”: War, Race, and Identity in Oscar Hammerstein'sCarmen Jones(1943)

Abstract

AbstractIn December 1943, an all–African American cast starred in the Broadway premiere ofCarmen Jones, Oscar Hammerstein II's adaptation of Georges Bizet'sCarmen. When Hammerstein began work onCarmen Jonesa month after Pearl Harbor, in January 1942,Porgy and Besswas just being revived. Hammerstein's 1942 version ofCarmen, set in a Southern town and among African Americans, shows the influence of the revised version ofPorgy and Bess, with Catfish Row echoed in a cigarette factory in South Carolina and the Hoity Toity night club. It took Hammerstein more than eighteen months to find a producer, and when the show opened by the end of 1943, the setting in a parachute factory and urban Chicago reflected new priorities brought on by wartime changes. Commercially one of the most successful musical plays on Broadway during its run of 503 performances,Carmen Jonesoffers a window on the changing issues of culture, class, and race in the United States during World War II. New archival evidence reveals that these topics were part of the work's genesis and production as much as of its reception. This article contextualizesCarmen Jonesby focusing on the complex issues of war, race, and identity in the United States in 1942 and 1943.