Are we going to have to start taking Calixto Bieito seriously? ENO’s Carmen reviewed

Calixto Bieito’s Carmen: three words to make an opera critic’s heart leap. Until quite recently, Bieito was the operatic provocateur of the century — the director who opened Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera with a row of men defecating on stage, and who presented Mozart with a side order of torture porn. Veterans of his Carmen told of fellatio and gratuitous nudity; it all sounded very promising. Add the malicious pleasure of seeing what unrevivable horrorshow ENO had lumbered itself with now — what steaming paella of body fluids it was about to dish up to an audience who’d paid for an evening of good tunes and sultry senoritas — and the review practically writes itself.

In retrospect, the fact that this show has been in ENO’s repertoire since 2012 should have been a red flag. Michael Tanner spotted it first time around: this is actually a fairly straightforward updating of Bizet’s opera.