‘Carmen’ Gets Hip

The tag line for MTV’s new rap-flavored version of Bizet’s “Carmen” is not “This is not your father’s ‘Carmen.’ ”

But it very well could have been.

With a bass-heavy beat and a rhythmic flow accompanied by eye-popping visuals and a cast heavy with today’s top urban music stars, MTV on Tuesday will raise the curtain on “MTV’s Hip Hopera: Carmen,” the latest and perhaps most revolutionary version of the classic opera about the seductive femme fatale. The cable network is billing it as the first hip-hop movie musical. In this “Carmen,” dialogue is frequently delivered in raps (“Take the gun out of my holster and I still have a Beretta”) performed by the cast, which includes Mekhi Phifer (“Clockers,” “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer”) and Reagan Gomez-Preston (the WB’s “The Parent ‘Hood”) as well as Da Brat, Mos Def, Lil’ Bow Wow, Wyclef Jean and several other experienced rappers.

Beyonce Knowles, the lead singer of the R&B; group Destiny’s Child, makes her film debut in the title role.

Original rap tunes by Kip Collins and Sekani Williams are spiced with traces of Bizet’s familiar themes, as well as pop culture references to Spike Lee, Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles, and Fatburger. The film also contains much of the MTV visual flash--quick cuts, slow-motion and colorful costumes.

But although “MTV’s Hip Hopera: Carmen” has the look and feel of a music video, it is very much a dramatic film, with a beginning, middle and end. Rappers are required to act, and actors are required to rap.

Directing this new version of “Carmen” presented a unique challenge for Robert Townsend, who has become one of the busiest directors of television movies. Townsend this season has already directed NBC’s “Livin’ for Love: The Natalie Cole Story” and Showtime’s “Holiday Heart.” Townsend was intent on creating what he calls a new breed of musical.

“I’ve seen a lot of music videos, and I grew up on musical theater like ‘Oklahoma!’ and ‘Carousel,’ and I just felt this was the opportunity to develop a new kind of genre,” said Townsend. “Everyone involved in this--the rappers and the actors--stepped up in a big way to create a whole new world.”

He also felt that young audiences would be more receptive of the hip-hopera than of traditional musicals, in which characters will suddenly break out in song while, out of nowhere, an orchestra starts playing.

“We wanted to push the envelope a bit with the musical numbers,” Townsend said. “I was concerned about the raps at first, but we were really intent on making a smooth transition from dialogue to raps. The dialogue is done in the vernacular of the streets, so it really doesn’t take the viewer out of the flow when the raps start. It’s like the characters are rapping really cool dialogue.”

The new film is a hip counterpart to the most famous film version of the opera, 1954’s “Carmen Jones,” with an all-African American cast featuring Dorothy Dandridge, Harry Belafonte and Pearl Bailey. The stars’ singing voices in that film were mostly dubbed. The performers in the new “Carmen” do their own vocals, which were recorded before shooting began.

Michael Elliot, one of the executive producers of the film along with frequent Townsend collaborator Loretha Jones, said he felt “Carmen” was a natural for a modern, youthful update.

“We wanted to do something really different, and we were looking at operas to serve as blueprints,” said Elliot, who was the executive producer of “The Source Hip Hop Music Awards.” “ ‘Carmen’ is one of the best-known operas, and it just looked like a slam dunk--to take Bizet’s music and put a hip-hop twist on it.”

Townsend and Elliot had high praise for Knowles, who has performed in several music videos along with her group Destin’s Child but has never acted. Through much of the new “Carmen,” she wears tight, revealing outfits, accenting her role with a not-so-subtle sexuality. “There are certain people who have never acted that don’t want to look stupid,” said Townsend. “But Beyonce was willing to step up and play. She has really good instincts, and was really comfortable in front of the camera. When I told her she had to be this hot creature who shakes up the world, her main response was, ‘Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.’ She hit the mark perfectly.”

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“MTV’s Hip Hopera: Carmen” priemeres Tuesday at 8 p.m. on MTV. Also airs Wednesday at 6:30 p.m., Friday at 1:30 p.m. and Saturday at 11 a.m. and 10 p.m. The network has rated it TV-14 (may be unsuitable for children under 14).