For the second year in succession, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra has launched its new season with an opera. Last time they chose Tosca. This Carmen was an even more determinedly spirited start - ebullient, no less.

Once again, what emerged strongly in Sakari Oramo's performance at Symphony Hall was a wealth of orchestral detail, highly effective instrumentation and mood creation, all of which is too often swamped in the pit of an opera house. With everything in the open, Bizet's craft was plainly underlined, countering the degree of disdain that familiarity with the tunes has bred.

However, given the clarity and gusto with which both the CBS orchestra and chorus - including a lively youth chorus - responded to Oramo, it was disappointing that director Michael Barry's semi-staging was not half as good as it needed to be. The intrinsic drama of the music also risked being dissipated by Barry's use of UCE Birmingham Conservatoire drama students, alongside the professional soloists, to act out roles usually taken by the chorus in a full staging. While educational outreach work is clearly now a major part of every orchestra's brief, compromising standards isn't necessarily helpful.

Katarina Karnéus's Carmen was much acclaimed early in her career and the dark sultriness she brought to the role was still apparent at Symphony Hall, although the voice didn't always sound as relaxed as it might. Her early duets with Gordon Gietz's Don José, particularly warm-toned in his middle register, were suitably seductive, but the encounters with the manlier Escamillo of Leigh Melrose had more fire.

In Micaëla, sung by Geraldine McGreevy, the mixed metaphor of a buttoned-up character wearing a dress with high slits typified the half-hearted costuming that is the other plague of semi-staging. Radio listeners - who will get the full thrust of the music, with the occasional clatter rather than distracting clutter - may be better served.

· Broadcast on Radio 3 tomorrow at 7.30pm.