Opera review: Edinburgh Grand Opera - Carmen, Edinburgh Festival Theatre

Show, don’t tell – that’s what they say in the theatre. It’s not a lesson that’s been taken to heart, though, in Christina Dunwoodie’s patchy production of Bizet’s Carmen for Edinburgh Grand Opera.

She unwisely introduces a new speaking character, Mercedes (a rather mannered Jennifer Hainey), who is supposedly remembering the events on stage as a tragic flashback, but in fact ends up simply telling the audience what they’re about to see. It has a strangely distancing effect, one only heightened by the fact that the musical numbers are sung in the original French, whereas Mercedes speaks in English. Surely an English translation would have been readily available?

In any case, Dunwoodie handles the thronging numbers of chorus members in her crowd scenes with ease, even if some of the more intimate moments between the lead singers are rather static and lacking in character – not helped by George Cort’s sometimes gloomy lighting.

Conductor Neil Metcalfe gets a spirited performance from the ad-hoc orchestra, although intonation and ensemble are often not what they should be.

But it’s the lead singers who really carry the show.

Danish tenor Jakob Holtze is a wide-eyed, bright-voiced Don José, and Laura Margaret Smith is sultry as Carmen, here a true femme fatale with an intense vibrato and a rich, burnished tone.

Jennifer Baird gives a touching performance as Micaela, but it’s the charismatic Russian baritone Mikhail Pavlov as the toreador Escamillo who steals the show, with a powerful voice and a presence that consistently commands attention.

Rating: ***