Performer: Mikhail Makarov

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

The role of the outsider struck a chord with Tchaikovsky, whose homosexuality alienated him from society. Stefan Herheim takes that identification as the central idea in his remarkable new production at Dutch National Opera.

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.