No-hoper

As I sat fuming through the latest absurd production of Carmen, this one directed by the controversial Daniel Kramer for Opera North, it struck me that this opera, like one other of the trio of popular masterpieces set in or around Seville, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, suffers because its central figure leads a separate life of her or his own; though they are most famous in the context of these works.

• From magazine issue: 29 January 2011