C armen, as always, packed them in at the New Theatre on Saturday. There were even girls in the audience dressed in flouncy Spanish dresses with flowers behind their ears, determined, I suppose, on a cold English November evening to let the heat of Andalucia warm the the cockles of their hearts. But, whether it was just an off evening for Ellen Kent’s company, Amphitheatre Productions (and I am usually one of her greatest fans), or whether the production team was tired out — having already toured through 13 English towns ranging from Truro to Derby (not to mention Ireland) — this particular show was curiously pedestrian, cold, even passionless.

A passionless Carmen! Well, not quiet. Indeed Carmen herself (Zarui Vardanean, pictured) was technically top drawer. The familiar numbers rang out in all their richness. But the thing lacked verve.That sultry, brooding sense of destiny was lacking, largely because the show was too slow-moving. For instance, having started late it was then late again in getting going again after the two intervals.

And if rhere is one thing Bizet’s Carmen needs above all others, it is fast, urgent fizz. The minor chord of impending doom was there from the start, of course, reminding us all that even in the midst of life there is death, and of course it grew more frequent as the the opera proceeded. But sadly, because we had to wait too long between scenes, the spell was broken. Worse, I for one got to thinking that Carmen was simply unpleasant — jilting her soldier-lover and ruining his career like that! — instead of pondering the wider, eternal questions about the unpredictable dangers always lurking beneath the surface of boiling love.

But enough carping. The pathos that Ellen Kent introduced with her Flamenco dancer and singer all but made up for the hiccoughs; the set by Will Bowen was excellent for Carmen; and the performance of Irakli Grigali (pictured) as Don Jose (the ruined soldier) was magnificently tragic.

Chris Koenig