Opera / “Carmen” Opera Australia on Cockatoo Island, until December 18. Reviewed by HELEN MUSA.

THIS “Carmen” was quite possibly the most inept production I have ever seen by Opera Australia.

Heavily decorated with irrelevant intrusions, like motorbike stunt riders crossing in front of the audience before, and during the performance, it was singular for its over-miked singing, perfunctory acting, visual distractions like fireworks and searchlights and repetitive, unimaginative choreography. Not even the huge yachts sailing close to the stage at the beginning of the night could make up for that.

There was even a mimed dumb show before the opera began, a concept straight out of “Hamlet” but with no relevance.

And there was not a skerrick of tragedy.

Romanian soprano Carmen Topciu as Carmen, dressed up like a streetwalker, waved her hands around, shrugged her shoulders, smirked and gave sly glances to her friends to show what she thought of Don José, wiggling her hips and her torso in a gross travesty of seductiveness. Her Act I Habanera was a about as sexy as an old corset.

Despite the words of the libretto by Halevy and Meilhac, which suggest that Carmen was a lover of freedom, what came across was a nasty, cynical individual who spent most of the night manipulating other people to her own ends. Even in the famous Act III where she shuffled the card of death, there was little sense of impending tragedy.

Italian tenor Roberto Aronica as the hapless Don José (he will share this role with Diego Torre) fared better in the acting stakes. Although not a good physical type for the innocent José, he sang beautifully and at least attempted to look as if he was smitten with Carmen.

It is hard to imagine that a production of “Carmen” can sideline Bizet’s enduringly popular music, but this one did.

José’s Act I duet with Micaela, one of the high points of the opera, was completely wrecked by director Liesel Badorrek’s decision to have most of cast looking on like voyeurs, with Carmen over to stage right mugging and snickering at Don José’s innocent encounter with the girl from his hometown.

And Micaela, sung powerfully by Danita Weatherstone, appeared in heavy make-up and an overdone costume completely at odds with her character.

There were several occasions during the operation which Badorrek chose to leave the entire cast on stage, not least right at the end in the most tragic moments when Don José and Carmen face off outside the bullring. Normally the crowd is inside watching the bullfight, but here again they became voyeurs, presumably to give the final encounter an element of the bullfight.

Badorrek seemed to have no idea of focus, so that the guard captain Zuniga (Richard Anderson) was at one stage left in complete darkness far stage left at the very moment when his reactions to Carmen were crucial.

Elsewhere, the director introduced gratuitous signs upstage to announce, for instance, that the toreador Escamillo had arrived—but his “Toreador Song” told us that too.

Worse was the directorial decision to have a huge sign flashing up behind the scene where Don José dispatches Carmen (in this version strangling her rather than the usual stabbing), alerting us that we were about to see a depiction of violence against women and thus destroying any chances of a tragic ending.

That decision invited the question as to why we weren’t alerted earlier to a particularly disgusting scene of extreme sexual harassment where Carmen bullies Don José into deserting and staying with her and her gang.

No tragedy, then, in this noisy “Carmen”, but plenty of motorbikes, rock ‘n’ roll music before the show, at interval and at the curtain call, so there were few opportunities to close your eyes and enjoy the music, except in the delightful intermezzo that begins the mountain scene in the smugglers’ hideaway.

So did the sex, fumes and rock ‘n’ roll hit the spot with the new generation of opera goers OA is seeking to attract?

Well, no, for of the many fashionably dressed young influencers and TV celebs who were in audience for the opening night, about quarter rushed to the exit or the bar at interval, leaving many empty spaces in the house.