SHANTY OPERA

REVIEWED - U-CARMEN eKHAYELITSHA: FIRST staged in Paris in 1875, Bizet's Carmen is the operatic equivalent of Hamlet in its adaptability to diverse film genres.

Cecil B DeMille directed a silent version in 1915. Otto Preminger updated it in the 1954 Carmen Jones, with an all-black cast led by Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte. In 1983 it received a colourful flamenco treatment from Spanish director Carlos Saura, and a characteristically idiosyncratic reworking by Jean-Luc Godard in Prénom Carmen, which made the protagonist a terrorist and jettisoned Bizet's music for Beethoven. And Francesco Rosi's rousing 1984 Carmen starred Julia Migenes and Placido Domingo. More recently, there was the MTV show, Carmen: A Hip Hopera, starring Beyoncé Knowles; Vicente Aranda's erotic Spanish treatment; and Jospeh Gai Ramaka's eccentric Senegal-set Karmen Gei.

Here it comes again in U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, this time imaginatively transposed to a present-day South African shantytown by British director Mark Dornford-May. The film, which took the Golden Bear for best picture at last year's Berlin festival, was adapted with a keen eye for detail and is arresting all the way. From the bustling overture sequence, the movie never feels contrived in its transposition, and the opera comfortably fits its new context.

Carmen (played by Pauline Malefane) now works at the Gypsy cigarette factory in a township playfully named Seville, after the location of the original opera. After a brawl at the factory, Carmen is placed in the custody of the Don Jose surrogate, Sgt Jongikhaya (Andile Tshoni), who has turned to the Bible after accidentally killing his brother in a fight. His attraction to Carmen proves irresistible, with tragic consequences.

This exuberant production, sung in the Xhosa language, explains the opera's enduring appeal through the vigorous performance of the spirited, familiar score and the visceral staging of the drama at its core. And Malefane's vibrant, sensual powerhouse of a performance as Carmen makes it clear why her fiery, passionate and complex character retains such a fascination for film-makers and audiences alike.