Carmen review: Stripped-down opera is distressing parable of a woman at the edge

Bizet’s Carmen is a great opera yet despite (or because of?) that, it’s been endlessly adulterated. In the 1940s, it became the Broadway musical Carmen Jones, Peter Brook’s The Tragedy of Carmen miniaturised it into chamber drama, Carlos Saura turned it into a flamenco ballet.

Mary Franklin’s new production extends the tradition. It’s sung in brazenly demotic English, with the inevitable effing and blinding and gags with mobile phones.

Here Carmen is an immigrant taking whatever zero-hours contract she can find: a hospital cleaner, a hostess in a seedy bar, drugs and booze always helping her through the day. Don José, still a poor sap, has an electronic tag to tie him to his police-inflicted curfew, while Escamillo, no longer a cocky bullfighter, is an overpaid, oversexed Arsenal striker.

The cast of thousands you’d expect in the opera house is conspicuous by its absence, and in Juliane Gallant’s skilfully merciless reduction, Bizet’s orchestra becomes a pair of pianos.

Some of it works, some of it doesn’t — the jokes encourage laughter when it isn’t really funny — but at its heart is a distressing parable of a woman at the edge. It’s pointless saying “it’s not Bizet” because that is the point: cutting grand opera down to size, while holding onto the heart of the matter.

It succeeds because the singers convince us, even through moments of vocal strain. This production has alternating principals; last night, Mike Bradley’s José was a tight ball of barely contained rage that has to erupt, while Jane Monari’s Carmen is determined to stare fate in the face — for which, of course, she pays the ultimate price.

Until March 9 (0207 226 8561, kingsheadtheatre.com)