Carmen review – Mid Wales opera rethink Bizet

Mid Wales Opera may be small-scale but in terms of ambition they think big. To celebrate their 25th anniversary, they invited no less a figure than Jonathan Miller to direct this new staging of Bizet's Carmen.

Steering clear of touristy cliches, Miller sets the opera in the 1930s, before the Spanish civil war, underlining the world of poverty and hardship that Carmen and the soldiers inhabit. This, Miller says, is a working-class tragedy. Nicky Shaw's design is functional, stark, sun-baked brown: the only flash of red is provided by the flower that Carmen provocatively places in the barrel of Don José's gun. Rory Bremner's clever translation ratchets up the earthy, raunchy side of the libretto, as well as injecting some dark humour into the banter between soldiers and tobacco-factory girls. Dialogue and music seem well-balanced, even if the odd "you what?" or "whatever!" do feel out of place.

Bremner's libretto is not the only new element. MWO commissioned composer Stephen McNeff to create a chamber-reduction of the original score. He recalibrates the instrumental sound, albeit taking his cues from Bizet; the alto sax captures the smoky, sultry atmosphere, and the percussion veers more towards jazzy drum-kit than orchestral, as if Lillas Pastia's club were staging a good band on the night. Artistic director Nicholas Cleobury makes it all work well with his spirited cast.

Strongest by far is Helen Sherman in the title role. No dark Gypsy, but a peroxide blonde, sensuous and sassy, she controls her mezzo throughout the range, from rich chest-voice to fearless top registers. Crucially, she is a magnetic presence even when she is not singing or centrestage: at the first appearance of the toreador Escamillo (the suave Nicholas Lester), the fickle Carmen's body language says it all: she smoulders.

Yet any hope of penetrating psychological insights from Miller into the character of José is stubbed out with the ubiquitous cigarettes. The corporal needs allure for his appeal to Carmen to be real, and, on this opening night, tenor Leonel Pinheiro had vocal problems that precluded a dynamic portrayal. Nowhere was this more obvious than in the final encounter with Carmen, where the tension should be palpable, but Miller also seemed to run low on ammunition by this point and the pathetic gun-shot off-stage was anything but climactic.