Happenstance

I had absolutely no idea how I was going to tackle a blog about happenstance until I made a throwaway joke to a friend about Adele (who sings with local opera company Musica Lirica) being in a production tomorrow in Lytham St Annes - something about car men.đŸ˜‰

Of course, I know it's a production of Bizet's opera Carmen and I shall be there to hear Adele and company perform; (it's probably happened by the time you're reading this). But that faux ignorant play on words prompted me to think I might write an automobile-based spoof of the story of Carmen for today's post. 
Imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered that in a sense it has already been done, and rather brilliantly too, as a short film, Car Men, directed by Boris Pavel Conen, with choreography by Jiří KyliĂĄn, back in 2006. Now that is happenstance - something that happens by chance, usually with a happy outcome, and it has certainly taken me places this evening that I never expected to go.

movie still from Car Men with Sabine Kupferberg as Carmen and a vintage 1937 Tatra

The film is just under thirty minutes long and was shot in black and white in an old Czech open cast brown coal mine. Obviously, I didn't even know of its existence until today, but I've tracked it down on Amazon Prime and have streamed it this evening. A series of excerpts is also available on YouTube (see end of  blog for a link).
Car Men features four highly accomplished performers, Sabine Kupferberg as Carmen, Karel HruĹĄka as Don Jose, Gioconda Barbuto as Micalea and David Krugel as Escamillo. The music is obviously Bizet's score from Carmen (or at least a subset of it), with additional sound effects provided by Max Frick.
Sabine Kupferberg started out as a dancer with the Stuttgarter Ballet before joining the Nederlands Dans Theater with whom she performed for over thirty years. She was also the life partner of choreographer Jiří Kyliån, and with him she formed Nederlands Dans Theater III specifically for dancers over forty years of age.
Karel HruĹĄka was born in Prague and made his dancing career with the Prague Ballet before going on to found his own company in France.
Gioconda Barbuto is an internationally esteemed Italian-Canadian dancer and choreographer. She was a long-time member of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, dancing with the company for sixteen years, and then of the afore-mentioned Nederlands Dans Theater III for eight years. Recognized by many for her exceptional versatility and magnetism as a performer and soloist, she has boldly embodied work by the most influential ballet and contemporary choreographers, including KyliĂĄn of course.David KrĂźgel is South African and started out as an acrobat and circus performer before gaining a scholarship to study ballet in New York. He danced for many years for ballet companies in Belgium and South Africa before joining Nederlands Dans Theater III and has more recently been Director of Programming for Hong Kong Ballet.

movie still from Car Men with the entire ballet cast cavorting to Bizet

The film is not operatic, in that there isn't much singing. All is modern dance and mime, with interpretations of scenes from Carmen set to musical selections from the score supplemented by sound effects. You don't need to know the story of Carmen in order to enjoy the film, although familiarity with the opera probably enriches the experience of watching Car Men, which is both wittily and wistfully done.
The dancers, given their pedigree, are naturally fabulous and expressive performers, the scenes are inventive and full of cross-cultural references, the sequence with Carmen as toreador and the car as bull is brilliant, and much of it has a zany quality partly due to a good deal of slapstick comedy and a speeded-up effect in homage to jerky old-fashioned silent movies.

movie still from Car Men  with Carmen not too impressed by Don Juan's advances

Of course the interpretation is a very liberal one, as the whole point is that the film is an extension of the Carmen - Car Men pun. So there are no dragoons, smugglers or inn-keepers, just the four principal characters building cars out of scrapped parts, racing each other in wacky-races style, and playing out the ebb and flow of their relationships, all in keeping with the comic opera mood of the original. And or course, Carmen gets run over. If you like imaginative film and contemporary ballet, you'd love Car Men and I urge you to check it out.
As for what Bizet might have made of it, I think he would have found it fun and rather complimentary, for he died suddenly after just a few public performances of Carmen and never lived to see it become one of the most popular operatic creations of all time.
Finally, there's no poem this week, but here courtesy of YouTube are a selection of scenes from Conen and KyliĂĄn's movie. Just click on the film's title to activate the link: Car Men  Enjoy!Thanks for reading, S ;-) Email ThisBlogThis!Share to XShare to Facebook