Tonight saw the open­ing of the Roy­al New Zealand Bal­let’s Meri­di­en sea­son of Car­men.

Set in the metrop­o­lis of mod­ern-day Rio de Janeiro, Car­men works in a cig­a­rette fac­to­ry by day and hangs out with a gang of low-life crim­i­nals by night. When José makes the mis­take of falling in love with Car­men, things spi­ral out of con­trol. As José’s world falls apart, Carmen’s desire to live life on her terms sets a course that can only lead to dis­as­ter.

The bal­let is based on the opera by Bizet (Wikipedia con­tains some seri­ous spoil­ers, of course), but this ain’t your grand­pap­py’s bal­let. Gang­sters tote cell­phones, a bull­fight­er has become a rock­star, the seedy bar has soc­cer on its TV. The result is a steamy piece of the­atre that crack­les with sex­u­al­i­ty, while still being crammed full of play­ful humour and heat­ed ten­sion.

I’m not a dance expert, but I’d say that this pro­duc­tion uses a lot of ele­ments of mod­ern dance as opp­posed to straight bal­let. There is a lot more swag­ger from the guys in their leather jack­ets. Car­men shakes her ass in a pair of tight jeans, while in her spark­ly gown and heels she comes across like Cyd Charisse, all legs and sex.

And let’s talk about the set design! Harsh chain­link fences at the cig­a­rette fac­to­ry are incor­po­rat­ed into the chore­og­ra­phy, neon signs light up the bar, and an iron bed is a stage for some incred­i­ble fore­play. The sets all seem very stripped back and sim­ple, but it’s obvi­ous how much thought has gone into them. The Vec­tor Welling­ton Orches­tra play along­side the action on the stage, and seem to have a lot of fun with the bugle-heavy score.

I was real­ly hap­py to see that the audi­ence lived up to the effort of the show, with some peo­ple wear­ing gowns or tuxe­does. We left with our hands tin­gling from clap­ping so much, and hearts full of lust. Go see Car­men. There are no tutus, but there is a lot of pas­sion.

PS: in the inter­ests of full dis­clo­sure, I was giv­en the tick­ets for free because appar­ent­ly I am a “key influ­encer” which is an inter­est­ing mar­ket­ing tac­tic on the part of NZ Bal­let.