Carmen

There are plenty of daft opera directors in the world but Calixto Bieito has to be the daftest. In this 2011 production of Carmen he strips out everything that gives the opera its unique character. Instead of a wild gypsy in 19th century Seville we get a middle-aged factory worker dressed in a grey overall in a more-or-less modern setting. The stage is almost bare throughout, no tobacco factory, no Lillas Pastia's taverna, no mountains no Seville. Act I uses a bare stage apart from a telephone box and a flagpole. In Act II instead of a tavern we have a car. Act III features more men in cars. Is Bieito taking the title too literally? In Act IV Seville is represented by a circle drawn on a bare stage. I say more-or-less modern because Carmen is seen having a heated telephone conversation in the phone box on her first appearance. The same lack of mobile phone technology is seen later when Jose and Michaela take a selfie. They use a camera with a film in it which gives Jose the opportunity to rip out the film later when he unaccountably gets angry over something.

Ah, I hear you saying, Bieito has stripped the opera down to its essentials to lay bare the human conflict. I don't think so. This is a director who knows nothing about stage drama. He bungles scene after scene and cannot handle the most rudimentary stage business required to make the action plausible. Why, for example, does the Lieutenant take off his own belt at the end of Act I and hand it to Jose so that he can restrain Carmen? Why don't his trousers fall down?

What does Bieto bring to the party? The opera starts with a man running round the stage in his underpants. At the end of the first Act a woman, I don't know who, is hoist up a flagpole. A fat man wanders round in a string vest. Lillas Pastia looking for his taverna, perhaps? There is some fellatio and the final act starts with a man taking off all his clothes and dancing. So far so yawnworthy. I was more bothered though by a sexualised little girl dancing at the start of the second act.

Béatrice Uria-Monzon's Carmen lacks colour and characterisation. This is not surprising since she has to sing her habanera in a grey overall. The, normally reliable Roberto Alagna as Don Jose seems to be straining a bit in his upper register. Don Jose is supposed to be a broody character but most of the time Alagna looks as though he would rather be somewhere else. He is at his best when duetting with Marina Poplavskaya's lively Michaela. Erwin Schrott is a vocally effective Escamillo although he is not allowed to do much in Bieito's production. The production ends anticlimactically as neither Alagna nor Uria-Monzon can create sufficient tension in their final fatal confrontation.