Anyone looking to Le théâtre national de l’Opéra-Comique’s Carmen for sunshine and señoritas could almost be forgiven for thinking they were at a different opera. There’s no mistaking Bizet’s eternally glorious score, but this was Carmen stripped back to the physical basics of the stage, populated by characters laid bare to the painful vulnerability of their human frailties for all to see.

Upping the auditorium lights drew the audience into this story straight away, when a visitor on the Opéra-Comique’s empty stage, the opera’s birthplace, morphed to become Don Jose, Carmen’s ill-fated lover. Superbly acted and sung by Saimir Pirgu, obsession was Jose’s tragic downfall. For Carmen, it was the struggle for freedom.

Encapsulated by the music’s carefree cheerfulness leading up to Carmen’s first appearance and then the sense of darkly coloured tension she brought with her, she sat captive to life with little future. Like Pirgu, Gaëlle Arquez in the title role bought into director Andreas Homoki and conductor Louis Langrée’s full-fusion vision. Less so Jean-Fernand Setti’s Escamillo, more off-duty undertaker than suave toreador. While the chorus sounded occasionally underpowered, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra displayed the very best of sparkling finesse. 

Carmen, Festival Theatre, 8 August, 7pm.