Captivating ‘Carmens’

“Carmen,” the Spanish gypsy who seduces any man she wants before disposing of him, has captivated audiences for almost a century--first in the novel by Prosper Merimee, then in the opera by Georges Bizet.

Since the movies were invented, filmmakers have embraced this torrid tale, with and without music. More than 30 films have featured screen Carmens, ranging from a 1909 silent film starring Victoria Lepanto to Theda Bara, Pola Negri, Geraldine Farrar (in a silent film version in 1915), Edna Purviance (in Charlie Chaplin’s 1915 “Burlesque on Carmen”), Rita Hayworth’s sizzling no-singing performance in 1948, Dorothy Dandridge in Oscar Hammerstein II’s adaptation for African-American performers, “Carmen Jones” in 1954, and Jean-Luc Godard’s fiercely personal vision (“First Name: Carmen” using the Beethoven Quartets for background music).

Maya Plisetskaya, the Bolshoi ballerina, dominates “Carmen Suite,” with the Bizet music orchestrated by Rodion Shchedrin. It is one of her most famous roles, a spectacular display of virtuosity.

A 73-minute videocassette of “Carmen Suite” with added snippets of Plisetskaya dancing, including Saint-Saens’ “Dying Swan,” is available from Video Arts International (P.O. Box 153, Ansonia Station, N.Y. 10023).

The most riveting opera on video is “Bizet’s Carmen” directed by Francesco Rosi (152 minutes, RCA/Columbia videotape and laser video disc). The cast features tenor superstar Placido Domingo as the passionate Don Jose (looking too old for the role of a young corporal, but who can sing it better?) and Ruggero Raimondi, a sympathetic Escamillo, the bullfighter.

But it is Julia Migenes-Johnson, an American of Puerto Rican and Greek descent, who steals this film as one of the most earthy, sensuous Carmens to sing the role. Her voice would be lost at the Metropolitan, but no matter; on film she is everything Carmen should be and more: a fiercely independent woman, who would be more at home in 1990 America than 19th-century Seville.

Lorin Maazel (with the Orchestra National de France) conducts the opera as if it were a movie soundtrack; the music emphasizes every emotional and dramatic moment perfectly. It is a crisp, bravura performance perfectly suited to the film’s vivid photography-on location in Spain by Pasquelino de Santi.

Rosi’s production shows how traditional grand opera can be brilliantly adapted on film. And yet, one wishes he were just a bit more concerned with Bizet’s music. The one terrible lapse is that the soundtrack is cluttered with realistic sounds that detract and sometimes obscure the most important part of the film: Bizet’s music. This is more “Rosi’s Carmen” than “Bizet’s Carmen.”

On disc, the picture is clear and sharp, capturing the bright colors of the sunbaked Spanish exterior. The soundtrack, cluttered with bird and animal noises, is annoyingly true to life, more often than not capturing the music as the opera soars to its conclusion.

There are two other “Carmens” on tape. One features Maria Ewing’s electric performance conducted by Bernard Haitink and the London Philharmonic Orchestra in a Glyndebourne production (175 minutes, Home Vision videotape). It is well-performed.

The other is Peter Brooke’s “La Tragedie de Carmen,” his controversial stage production on film, with Helene Delavault as Carmen, supported by Howard Hensel, Agnes Host and Jake Gardner (82 minutes, Home Vision videotape). Here the story is emphasized with Bizet’s music taking a back seat to the action; it is not a good idea.

Carlos Suara’s startlingly original flamenco “Carmen,” nominated for the best foreign language film in 1983, emphasizes the opera’s passion and erotic violence (Media Home Entertainment, tape; Image Entertainment, laser disc).

“Carmen” is directed by Suara and stars Antonio Gades as a pathetic yet virile Don Jose with Laura del Sol as a coldly irresistible Carmen. It is a smoldering version in which every frame is filled with so much erotic tension that it almost bursts from the screen.

This “Carmen” pulses with jealousy-not only within the plot of Bizet’s opera but also in a clever parallel love story. Gades, the director of a flamenco company, searches for an dancer to play Carmen to his Don Jose in a dance based on the themes of the opera.

Soon, reality and fiction blur as real life emulates the story’s tragedy. Excerpts from Bizet’s opera merge with the nerve-wracking sound of the footwork that makes flamenco dancing so spectacular as the grueling rehearsals turn the dancer’s material into tragedy.

Gades, one of the great male flamenco dancers of the century, has that perfect weary, chain-smoking face of a man who realizes that he is being made a fool. Del Sol does the remarkable job of mixing the fresh look of an insecure young dancer with the calculating assuredness of a woman who knows exactly what she wants and how to get it.