The   Naked   Carmen

Side A:

BAND I 11:50

ODYSSEY(Prelude)
Moog Synthesizer, Detroit Symphony Orchestra/Paul Paray

THE FACES ARE THE SAME, I (Entr'Act)
David Hess

WHEN LOVE IS FREE (Habenera)
Melba Moore

BAND II 5:33

FACES ARE THE SAME, II (Entr'Act)
David Hess

THE FLOWERIE SONG (The Flower Song)
Robert White and Anita Darian

THE UNIVERSAL MILITARY BUBBLEGUM BAND (The Children's Chorus)
Darian, kazoo; Pig Iron; Detroit Symphony Orchestra/Paul Paray

BAND III 8:55

FACES ARE THE SAME, III (Entr'Act)
David Hess

PLAYIN' THE GAME (Toreador Song)
William Walker

TIME (Michaela's Aria)
Melba Moore

BAND I 8:28

PAPER HERO and THE DARKNESS (March of the Toreadors)
Pig Iron; Detroit Symphony Orchestra/Paul Paray

SOMEWHERE TO GO (Seguidilla)
George Turner

BAND II 6:29

FACES ARE THE SAME, IV (Entr'Act)
David Hess

THIS SICK AND HUNGRY WORLD (The Gypsy Song)
Mary Bruce and her Starbuds

CARMEN FANTASETTE (Bizet-Atkins) Recorded LIVE!!
John Atkins, piano

BAND III 11:00

THE TAROT DEALER (The Card Song)
Melba Moore

REQUIEM (Montage)

THE FACES ARE THE SAME, V (Entr'Act)
David Hess

Symphonic excerpts from the Carmen Suite by Georges Bizet
Performed by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra / Paul Paray, Conductor.
Orchestrated and Conducted by John Corigliano

It wasn't yet the end of the Sixties, but already the powers that be were lamenting the decade that was. Some of the loudest laments came from the minions of the classical-music business, which was worried that rock and roll was in fact here to stay, and how are we going to stay in business if Chuck Berry, or for that matter the Beatles, keep telling Beethoven to roll over? Not even Tchaikovsky was prepared for news like that.

This is not to say that the young people of the era had no interest in the music of the ages. Wendy Carlos had issued a collection of Bach pieces played on a modified Moog synthesizer, which sold well to classicists and rockers alike, and occasionally some poor shlub might stumble across something from the standard repertoire, but the trend seemed irreversibly downward. Music magazines deplored the situation, editorials denounced it, and Mercury Records decided to do something about it. Two composers with connections to Mercury - John Corigliano, representing the classical idiom, and David A. Hess, from the folk/pop side - took hold of Bizet's 1875 opera Carmen, ostensibly updated the story by a century or so, boiled it down to fifty minutes, and managed to work in an amazing number of musical styles, few of which were likely to remind anyone of Bizet.

Needless to say, it was deemed necessary to make this hodgepodge appeal to the counterculture. The last two pages of the liner notes juxtapose Carmen and a mushroom cloud, and the jacket back is full of pictures of cigar bands - which prove to be, upon closer observation, bands for a different sort of smoke altogether. The Children's Chorus is driven by a kazoo; the March of the Toreadors dissolves into a montage that rivals John and Yoko's "Revolution 9" for sheer indigestibility, punctuated with references to the likes of Daniel Cohn-Bendit and a voiceover by Spiro Agnew; instructions are provided for turning the jacket itself into a "Cigar-Box Guitar, Light Show and Sound Sculpture". To be honest, I loved almost every over-the-top minute of it. Melba Moore drew the assignments for the Habañera, Micaela's Air, and the Card Song, and she did them with considerable verve. The Detroit Symphony, perhaps with teeth quietly gritted, performs the orchestral bits as well as you'd expect. David Hess himself sings the plaintive entr'acte. I doubt seriously The Naked Carmen did anything to reverse the decline in classical sales, but once you get past "What were they thinking?" you may actually find some of this worthwhile.

    Click the pic to download a 45M MP3 of the whole thing