From the first sight of the shabby clothes, the walls stained by cigarette smoke, and the dingy streets full of dodgy dealers, you can see that Glyndebourne have brought a deliciously dirty Carmen to town. The smoky sirens of the tobacco factory, barely contained by their nicotine-stained petticoats, flirt and play with the ill-disciplined soldiers, backed by a chorus of piping urchins and the shadowy dealings of Seville. Above this murky world Michaëla (sung with strident purity by Helen Williams) raises a lone voice of virtue as she searches out her adoptive mother's son, Don José. But José (a bitter, self-loathing Peter Auty) is already tainted, a priest-turned-gambler fleeing arrest and his own violent temper, and when factory girl, smuggler, and all-round bad girl Carmen gives him the eye, he is more than ready to jump between her eager legs. But his inconsistencies betray him, and while Carmen, played with perfect, passionate indifference by Christine Rice, can cry wholeheartedly, "the weekend is here, and whoever wants to love me, I'll love!" José cannot love as easily, or forget as quickly, and when she leaves him for a toreador (a stylish, strutting, David Kempster) the scene is set for tragedy. The familar tunes are well performed, with almost every song in the second act winning applause, and though the excitement falters a little when the action takes to the mountains for some unconvincing fighting with convincing knives, it returns in force for a fabulously overdressed, confetti-strewn finale. After all, there's a reason these songs are so well known; they are some of the greatest celebrations of vice ever sung; smoking, free love, bullfighting all get their turn, and it is impossible not to feel the excitement as the gypsies stamp and sway through the Romalis or Carmen sings, "freedom, above all!"

Jeremy Dennis, 03.12.02