Part of the string of musicals that hit Singapore for the past few weeks starting with “Buddy Holly” and followed by “Slava Snow Show”, “Carmen” the musical was thus, highly anticipated.

The original version of “Carmen” was in English, but the version that was playing at the Kallang Theatre was in Spanish. Why? Simply because the director and writer for the show wanted to portray the true Andalusian culture and meaning of the heroine in her own country.

A simply stage setup consisting of a couple of chairs, a percussion band, a troupe of trumpeteers was all that was needed to create the backdrop for the story.

“Carmen” tells the story of Carmen, a lady who was ahead of her time. She fell in love with a soldier, that was considered scandalous at that time. The soldier was locked up for murdering one of her admirers and Carmen visited him during that time. Unfortunately, she fell in love with one of the horse riders working in the jail as she was still considered 'single'. The soldier, upon his release from jail, killed Carmen in a fit of jealousy and was subsequently hung for that after that. With that ending, the legend of Carmen was thus sealed for prosperity.

Told by word of mouth from generation to generation, you could feel like part of that story-telling during the musical. There were four singing ladies telling out the tale through the beautiful Andalusian music. Unfortunately for the Singaporean audience, we were not exactly able to appreciate the lyrics and could only sit and watch as the ladies sang the mournful tunes out.

The most enjoyable part of the show was when the horse rider and his horse appeared on stage. The mix of flamenco dancing and the clip-clopping of the horse's hoofs was fantastic and the audience roared with approval at the sight.

Though it was all in Spanish, I certainly enjoyed myself and look forward to actually watching the English version of the musical!