Mummy issues: Michieletto’s Carmen returns to the Royal Opera House

Heat, blood, the saltiness of sweat and tears; few works are able to evoke these as deftly as Carmen. It’s a director’s paradise too, with opportunities for traditional glamorous stagings, abstract concepts and a focus on domestic drama or on societal themes. Damiano Michieletto has established a reputation for digging deep for psychological insights into the characters he stages; in this first revival of his 2024 production of Bizet’s masterpiece for The Royal Opera, we are presented with characters haunted by the past.

Michieletto eschews dwelling too heavily on the theme of male violence – although Carmen’s death is depicted as a brutal throttling which is hard to watch – and instead gives us something more akin to a domestic drama, with both principals haunted. José’s mother is a lugubrious onstage presence, a reminder that years since his departure she retains a grip on his psyche. Carmen, meanwhile, clearly has her own demons driving her – noise, fun, action must be omnipresent. If she stops, they consume her. In this production, as in so many, Carmen is directly juxtaposed against Micaëla, the former all legs and heels, the other skirted to the top of her sensible boots, practically screaming a parody of the goody-goody two-shoes. In fairness to Michieletto, it’s hard to do much with what is essentially a plot-device of a character, but tight direction shows that there is a repressed character trapped beneath the tweed, the stuffed-shirt demeanour that José shows in the first half hints of the dominant influence of Mummy that grips them both.

The big news for this revival was the return of Aigul Akhmetshina, the world’s Carmen du jour. She knows the role backwards and inhabits it completely. On opening night, she dominated the stage, drawing all eyes and ears, captivating with every movement and each sound. Her mezzo is a magnificent instrument: it combines sheer power with glorious colour across the registers. Cigar-dark at the bottom with a glossy sheen on the rounded top notes, phrasing so exquisite that every moment felt like part of one long single line, her voice is a treat to hear, and Akhmetshina gave a sense of savouring the text – with fragrant, pointed enunciation.

Freddie De Tommaso, a popular tenor in this house, was the Don driven to distraction. His José is shown to be completely discombobulated by the habanera hurricane, and De Tommaso gave us a man struggling to keep his grip, buffeted and dismayed. De Tommaso’s voice is attractive and has a robust delivery, but didn’t seem to be quite on best form on first night, with some slightly clunky phrasing, particularly in the first two acts. He was at his strongest when quietened, dropping the power to allow some attractive colour to shade his tenor. 

Yaritza Véliz's pale and incisive soprano had plenty of heft as Micaëla; a little glassy in Act 1, it blossomed in Act 2 and she delivered a forceful and energised performance in Act 3, drawing strength from outrage at her belief in Carmen's desecration of her former idol. Lukas Goliński brought a slow swagger to Escamillo; his authoritative bass-baritone gave the sense of a veteran toreador at the height of his powers over a young thruster.

In the pit, Sir Mark Elder conducted a reading of the score that placed pre-eminence upon beauty and detail; lush textures, balance and some delightful playing from the woodwind (some particularly fine moments for the bassoon stood out). There were points though, predominantly in the first two acts, where the interpretation felt a touch leaden, lacking the sense of fire and blood that matched the events on stage. This, and one or two other gripes aside, make this revival a pleasure to catch.