Glyndebourne's new Carmen, directed by David McVicar, has been built around the casting of the title role. It was Anne Sofie von Otter's desire to sing the part on stage that spawned the idea of this production, and though it was not conceived as a mere vehicle for her "star" performance, it is her contribution - or rather the dramatic limitations of it - that determines much of the texture and flavour of the result.
Von Otter, fine singer that she can be, is not on this evidence a natural for Carmen. Portraying feral amorality does not come easily to her, and her body language on stage consists of a small repertoire of self-consciously calculated signals: there is lots of hands-on-hips pouting, leaning back in a chair with legs spread wide, coy pulling up of skirts to reveal a few inches of calf. Her big numbers are beautifully sung, but carefully rather than spontaneously phrased. Nothing seems to arise spontaneously out of the character that Von Otter is trying to project.
That she is partnered by a cold fish of a Don Jose, played by Marcus Haddock, hardly helps matters. The central tragedy of the opera is his, not Carmen's, but their relationship - his obsession with her, her cynical manipulation of him - is hardly sketched at all, leaving a dramatic vacuum at its heart. Lisa Milne's tenderly sung yet frumpy, over-mature Micaela hardly impinges upon this Jose either. And although the first arrival of Laurent Naouri's Escamillo provides a real lift to the performance - Naouri is the only native French singer in the cast, using the French text with total understanding and panache - he appears like a character from another planet in this dysfunctional web of relationships.
McVicar surrounds it all with a vast array of detailed business, and obtains some carefully registered performances of some of the smaller roles, especially Christine Rice's grumpy Mercedes and Jonathan Best's seedy, dissolute Zuniga. It is a brooding view of Carmen, a dissection of lost souls embedded in Michael Vale's scrupulously realist sets. There is no hint of sunny Seville; everything is claustrophobic and cramped. Only Sue Blane's meticulously Spanish costumes provide a note of native colour, though the fashion parade at the beginning of the last act is way over the top.
The colour could come from the orchestra, but the conductor, Philippe Jordan, only gradually injected life and lilt into Bizet's score. By the last act, the London Philharmonic was playing as if it had an important part to contribute to the drama. But even if it had been on that form from the start, the shortcomings of the central performances would still have been hard to ignore.
· Until August 19. Box office: 01273 813813.
