Last year, when Damiano Michieletto’s production of Carmen first appeared at the Royal Opera House, Aigul Akhmetshina’s received great praise for her performance in the title role. This year she has returned even better. This Russian mezzo-soprano has developed into the perfect Carmen. Quite apart from a beautiful voice which is particularly powerful on the low notes in Bizet’s score, her acting is deliciously commanding, making it clear why she has total control over the many men in her life.

My reservations about Michieletto’s production, however, have remained. This Italian director is full of ideas, some of which are strikingly effective while others vary from unnecessary to confusing. On the plus side, all the characters are well developed, with the badly behaved children in the town square at the start creating just the right atmosphere for the mayhem that follows. The smugglers in the following act are also convincing as seriously professional law-breakers.

On the other hand, I still do not see why Michieletto has created an extra characters in the form of a woman dressed in black who appears right at the beginning slowly making her way silently across the stage then returns enigmatically later. Apparently she represents Don Jose’s mother, but whether she is meant to symbolise his conscience or to be some sort of mystic ghostly presence is totally unclear and adds nothing to the story.