Carlos Acosta’s Carmen isn’t the opera you know but you’ll recognize the music. Extremely danceable and performed by a highly competent company, Bizet’s famous score is in this case prerecorded and piped in to the Richmond Theatre offering a curious mixture of ecstatic dance and rather quiet song to theatregoers.
Adria Díaz as Carmen and Alexander Arias as Don José both rise to the occasion and their dancing chemistry powers this performance forward with compelling turns by Paul Brando as Bull and Brandy Martínez as Zúñiga to compliment the molten core of sensuality at the heart of this piece.
Music by George Bizet and arrangement by Rodión Schedrin is interspersed with additional music by Martin Yates, Yhovani Duarte and Denis Paralta fairly seemlessly. Set and costumes by Tim Hatley and lighting by Peter Mumford adequately communicate time and setting but don’t attempt much beyond that, leaving the boldest creative choices to video designer Nina Dunn, a choice that results in this content occasionally distracting from the dancing itself.
With an actual performance time of only a little over an hour, this production, although expanded from an earlier working, does feel abridged. Audiences get very little sense of Carmen’s motivation beyond the intercession of the devilish spectre haunting the ballet’s events. Converting an opera into a hybridised ballet is a necessarily tricky business. As much as enjoyers of both mediums have been conditioned to read synopses before attending performances it is no less important now than ever to present these works under the assumption that some audience members may be encountering them for the first time. In this case, although much is gained from Acosta’s sensational choreography, the absence of Meilhac and Halévy’s libretto is sorely felt, particularly as the piece’s overall brevity leaves both plot and character behind in its mad rush to the finale.
Reviewer: Kira Daniels
Reviewed: 9th April 2026
North West End UK Rating: