Performer: Mikhail Makarov

Die Rolle des Außenseiters traf einen Nerv bei Tschaikowsky, dessen Homosexualität ihn von der Gesellschaft entfremdete

Isabelle Patriot-Pieri's new production is a quirky mix of traditional and the opposite; Netrebko shows her star quality; Eyvasov impresses.

With an opera like Carmen, one never knows exactly what to expect. Recent trends (with English National Opera, for instance) have been to up the levels of raunchiness in an attempt to recreate the original scandale which this depiction of lower-class immorality in 19th-century Seville met with in Paris in 1875.