Her Name is Carmen, Carmen the Cuban (and some ideas about musical theater and Cuba)

September 20, 2018

The British press, famous for its demands and honest treatment regarding what it promotes, has bestowed upon Carmen la cubana, the musical that covered the first part of August at the prestigious Sadler's Wells, with accolades that could seem surprising. The famous theater, where Pina Bausch and so many celebrated companies have presented their most memorable productions, has welcomed this large group of artists who, under the guidance of Christopher Renshaw, reimagines the well-known story of the gypsy woman who prefers to die rather than surrender to someone she does not love. Carmen the Sevillian, since Prosper Mérimée made her the protagonist of his novella, has been the central figure of numerous versions and adaptations, none capable of surpassing George Bizet's opera, truly able to take her from the pages of the book to allow her to survive decades and decades through these new interpretations. Carmen la cubana, which arrives in London after its time in France in 2016, and now through Germany, is a new look at a woman who, beyond costumes and eras, remains true to herself, even though death is her irrevocable destiny.

I came to be part of the team now linked to this musical through a telephone call. Christopher Renshaw, a director with a long career that includes opera, dramatic theater, and musical theater, visited Cuba and, like so many, was fascinated by its culture and its people. From there he began to imagine a new Carmen, set in our own realm, full of contrasts, contradictions, and a potential that not many properly calibrate. Renshaw, who worked with Joan Sutherland and Pavarotti, and directed among other pieces a very successful revival of The King and I, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award, began to explore possible collaborators to make that dream tangible. British producer Jon Lee is one of his allies, and he had the fortune to count on the talent of Alex Lacamoire, a Cuban-American musician and arranger, who by now has already won several Grammy and Tony Awards for his work on such recognized works as In the Heights, Hamilton—alongside Lin Manuel Miranda—and Dear Evan Hansen.

For Lacamoire, reinterpreting Bizet's score in terms of Latin and Caribbean airs would be a challenge that would return him to his family roots, and his subsequent union with the young musician from the Island, Edgar Vero, would become a perfect connection. As for the dramaturgy and the Spanish version of the plot and songs, the starting point was the highly acclaimed Carmen Jones. Created by Oscar Hammerstein II, one of the most important renovators of American musical theater since the 1940s, based on Bizet's opera, it was the first production of its kind that brought an entire cast of African Americans to Broadway, and gained greater resonance when Otto Preminger converted it into the film centered on Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte in 1954.

This is where I connect to what is now known as Carmen La Cubana. The recommendation that the distinguished Cuban-American playwright Nilo Cruz, Pulitzer Prize winner for Anna in the Tropics, gave to Renshaw put us in contact. It was a stroke of luck. I remembered having seen the film in my childhood, alongside my mother, and those memories still accompany me. At that moment, moreover, I was preparing to create a puppet version based on Carmen, which Teatro de las Estaciones had asked me for and which I still owe them. But thanks to that, and to the kindness of friends like Ahmed Piñeiro, I was already immersed among dance versions and operatic productions of the immortal gypsy. The call I received from Miami was the trigger, and after verifying that Christopher Renshaw was an experienced director (and not one of so many who have appeared in Cuba proclaiming themselves as such when in truth they fall far short of being true artists), I decided to be part of the creation of this new musical. I always wanted to experience being part of a production like this, in real dialogue with genuine professionals in the field, however little it is respected in Cuba and however little we can do it here on the scale it now has before the most demanding audiences in the world. It seemed to me like an opportunity fallen from heaven. And I threw myself fully into working on this new Carmen, knowing that I had to understand it (and I still do) as a very demanding challenge.

Genre specialists and those who live from it warn: creating a musical takes between three and five years, never less. There are many talents and efforts that must be brought into harmony, and not little that producers must contribute, since it is an expensive genre. In Renshaw's favor was the great musical and dance potential of the Island, and against it, our loss of the musical theater tradition and of actors and actresses properly trained for its demands. An interpreter of this type of work must act, dance, and sing with dignity. With virtuosity, if they are a true star (something so rare to find). The auditions showed that we had talent, and that much was needed to achieve those figures, coming from dramatic theater, children's theater, lyric theater, and cabaret, forming a solid ensemble, as it should be in this type of production.

Roclan Chávez would be in charge of choreography, with the Cuban Television Ballet. In the early mornings of Alamar, I heard Maria Callas singing Bizet's arias, reviewing a copy of Carmen Jones, and listening to Alex Lacamoire in the mp3 files he sent me from New York to give me the melodic pattern on which I would have to incorporate my new lyrics. In 2015, in an abandoned and nearly crumbling dock in Havana, next to the Regla ferry terminal, we presented the first version of Carmen, el amor cubano (that's what it was called then), before the producers who came here and a fervent audience. After much searching, we already had a cast. At its head was Luna Manzanares, a happy discovery for her voice, her physique, her versatility, and her organicity as an actress, even though she had never played any role on stage. Daughter of designer Calixto Manzanares and actress and director Ana María Nardo, who were my professors at the National School of Art, Luna is more than the singer that the Cuban people now know: a true star in the making, as the reviews that her Carmen has been accumulating have demonstrated.

With her was the orchestra conducted by Kurt Crowley, and Alex Lacamoire, both coming from Broadway. With lighting by Manolo Garriga and a very elementary scenic design, we presented the workshop. In the cast were also Alberto Polanco, Miriam Socarrás, Joaquín García, Maikel Lirio, Yordano Cárdenas, Laritza Pulido, Emán Xor Oña, and Jazz Vilá, some of whom have continued to be part of Carmen la cubana. The effort of many worked its little miracle, and it seemed that doors were opening for everyone. But it wasn't until April 2016 that the Théâtre de Châtelet, in the 1st district of Paris, confirmed this to us, and there we revised the script, to which British Stephen Clark was incorporated, and we worked with a cast that, in addition to the Cubans, added figures from the United States, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and other nations.

With costume and scenographic design (a building on the verge of collapse in Havana, where the two acts take place) by Tom Piper, and lighting by Fabrice Kebour, Carmen la cubana arrived at the City of Light, and Luna's face appeared on street corners and in metro stations. Albita Rodríguez came to embody the Señora, a guiding character in the plot, and alongside her and Luna were also Eileen Faxas, Nisely Vega, Cedric Leiba, Tony Chiroldes, Joel Prieto, and Raquel Camarinha. The French press praised the spectacle, and the Théâtre de Châtelet became, along with the German company BB Promotion, a producer of the entire piece. Among the joys that Paris season gave me, aside from allowing me to walk through such a beautiful capital for the first time, was greeting Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, two of my idols and responsible for the fervor that, despite everything, I continue to express toward contemporary musical theater.

Now, Carmen la cubana, after a review of the experience in France, arrives in Germany, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland on a much more ambitious tour. At the request of the producers, the cast was reorganized exclusively with talent born on the Island, which allowed us to include young figures to whom I was able to suggest specific roles. With Luna Manzanares, Joaquín García, Albita Rodríguez, and other veterans of the project, one can now see on stage Saeed Mohamed Valdés, Rachel Pastor, Cristina Rodríguez, Jorge Enrique Caballero, Indira Hechavarría, Geidy Chapman, Yoset Puentes, Leonid Simeón, and Frank Ledesma. The performances began at the Cologne Philharmonic, before a knowledgeable and respectful audience that closed each night with applause and standing ovations. After that first trial by fire, the spectacle moved to London, where just today the performances conclude as I write these lines. Like other important newspapers, The Guardian gave Carmen la cubana four stars out of five possible, and praised the cast of actors and dancers, accompanied by a vibrant orchestra of fourteen musicians who perform live the arrangements by Lacamoire and Vero, which transform the famous habanera into a danzón, and carry at the rhythm of salsa and timba the toreador's entrance, converted here into the boxer Niño Martínez.

There are many accolades from the London press, which demonstrates that Carmen la cubana can advance without fear toward the next venues, which include performances at year's end in Shanghai, without losing hope of arriving on Broadway. Among all those praises, I prefer the one that Maria Hardcastle gave us in The Wonderful World of Dance, because I believe it summarizes our central purpose in creating this piece: "When the company erupts in the final greeting, with its dynamic Latin choreography and glorious Cuban music, it emphasizes who is the true star of the show: the Cuban culture that this production has captured in all its intensity." And that is so, because beyond the stereotypes and easy solutions of others who have tried to approach our culture and our history, the Carmen la cubana team has worked toward a credible and colorful portrait, firm in its sonic proposal, about an Island that has much to offer and narrate, and that can do so, in conjunction with talents from other latitudes, without becoming merely a postcard of theme park smiles.

In this new version, Carmen, who lives her conflict in the dawn of the revolutionary triumph, is a woman who must decide what world she integrates into, and who is not reduced to choosing one man over another. That is the difference of our Carmen from the others: behind the sumptuous arrangements, one hears the echoes of a change that will redefine Cuba, and its protagonist, and that leaves the spectator to think for themselves about freedoms and sacrifices, in tune with what contemporary musical aspires to present to an audience that does not want only glitter and simple entertainment.

As a final point, I want to thank immensely Christopher Renshaw and the professionals of musical theater who have allowed me to be part of this happy idea. For me it has been a process of learning and challenge, submitting myself again and again to rewrites inherent to the genre, and to confidence in the talent of those who accompany me. Opening the possibility of being with us to new figures from the Island is a pleasure no less intense: I hope they learn from this long tour new notions of discipline, and of dialogue with specialists and experienced audiences, something essential for every artist who respects themselves. There is much I am grateful to Carmen la cubana for, and what I hope to continue learning from this experience.

It will be difficult to see the spectacle in Cuba because, as I have already said, it is an expensive piece with technical demands that do not accompany us. But I trust that precisely those who now live each day in the performances will return to the Island with the baggage of this trial by fire, and can share what they have learned with their friends and colleagues. It is a pity that in Cuba there is not right now a solid company of musical theater; that the coliseum where this type of work was once performed is falling to pieces; that distrust of its best titles persists; that payment rates among musicians, dancers, and actors prevent the solidity that the genre demands; that there are so many impostors passing themselves off as actors of this expression, and that there are those who believe that because they sing a little, dance a little, and act a little, they can already dare to attempt any of the great works that today keep the billboards of the great capitals lit.

Even more lamentable is that we settle for a half-baked musical theater, with voice dubbing and presentations halfway between a Broadway copy and the imaginative poverty of many. That our own tradition of the genre (how many times did I not go back to see Un día en el solar, all and its cinematographic defects, to admire Alberto Alonso's choreographies), is frozen and condemned to the melancholy of those who lived it. I have great respect for those who treasure that memory, but I believe it must be rescued in progressive terms, not only as lamentation for an era that will not return. And of course, with the participation of those who must understand that musical theater is part of our culture from the days of the bufo, and that paying for a dignified production, with the talent that still waits here for a foreign producer to discover it, is an investment that will bear fruit in the long term. It is sad that we live on the "island of music" and that such a designation can barely be proven on our stages. And no less sad is that, while artists born here win applause in such demanding territory, our cultural press seems deaf to such news. For now, Carmen La Cubana relieves me somewhat of these issues. And it always returns me to the recording of Maria Callas, even though when I hear it, as happened to me when I stopped at the tomb of George Bizet to thank him, it seems to me that I hear, in the background of everything, the echoes of my own country. And let it be clear that I say this without false pride.

By Norge Espinosa
Source: La Jiribilla