Brighton Year-Round 2026

Carmen

Carlos Acosta

Genre: Adaptation, Ballet, classical, Drama, Mainstream Theatre, Theatre, Tragedy

Venue: Theatre Royal, Brighton

Festival: Brighton Year-Round

Low Down

Review

Back in 2015 Carlos Acosta stepped out of dancing from the Royal Ballet, where he’d been for 17 years and did two things straight away: created his own company Acosta Danza nurturing Cuban dancers; and crafted a one-act ballet for the Royal Ballet. He soon expanded it into a full-length 140 minutes (with interval) spectacle, reinventing Prosper Mérimee’s 1845 tale yet again. One not just immortalised by Georges Bizet, but a procession of choreographers. And so Acosta’s Carmen lights across the stage at Theatre Royal Brighton till May 2.

It’s deeply impressive in many ways. Carmen ballet, performed by Acosta Danza, uses Rodion Shchedrin’s famous 1967 string/percussion arrangement of Bizet’s 1875 opera score, the Carmen Suite. Acosta’s production – an expansion of his 2015 one-act ballet for the Royal Ballet  – uses as its core the Shchedrin arrangement. Cheekily, other Bizet scores wink at you: the contrapuntal ‘Farandole’ of Bizet’s 1872 L’Arlésienne to the Act Two Bacchanalian ensemble piece (a highlight) bringing not a girl from Arles but Cuba. Combining modern classical dance with striking gestures this Carmen is irresistible.

This is very much an ensemble piece, and leads alternate so even in these few days you’ll see one of three combinations.  On opening night Amisaday Naara (29 April and 2 May matinee) absolutely sizzled, slinking and flying across the stage, with phenomenal fluidity – Acosta’s choreography is remarkably liquid and muscular. Naara incites every fleck of Acosta’s routine and seems to draw it in and out of herself. Her stamina, flexibility and physicality is – even by international ballet standards – phenomenal: something she shares with her co-leads throughout.

This ripples both in pas de deux and ensemble numbers, where it’s often at its most engaging. Here Naara shows Acosta’s Cuban woman as someone as freed from conventional shackles: as Castro’s Cuba used to proclaim it was. But there’s no great parallels: bull-fighting isn’t very Cuban, though here there’s a Cuban resource and mythology to turn the bull into a figure of fate instead. Here Carmen’s just not into any forever, but the joy of the moment as she’s transfixed by the next sexual challenge. One other nights Carmen’s danced by Adria Díaz (30 April and 2 May) and Thalía Cardín (1 May).

Naara draws in an initially reluctant then smouldering Don José, on this occasion Alejandro Silva (29 April and 2 May matinee), though on other occasions it’ll be Alexander Arias (30 April and 2 May) and Aniel Pazos (1 May). Silva and Naara certainly enjoy a perfectly-aroused dancing relationship, with breathtaking emotional storytelling and unbridled eroticism. In fact the appearance of a bed when you think they’ve consummated pretty thoroughly almost seems superfluous, but everything is enacted twice in a different way: for Silva’s Don José the first is transfixed lust, the second love. For Carmen it’s a bit different as she stares at his proffered ring (when did he think of that?). Silva gets his best chances in Act 2 after Don José’s been rejected for a hunky toreador and tries winning Carmen back. And in the stand-off fight and a pas de trois as it were between all three leads.

Escamillo in a sense has to slightly tower over Don José, and it’s neatly done: the two square up and Paul Brando (29 April and 2 May matinee) is magnificent: all flounce, stomp and contained moves, a muscular stance less slinky and more territorial: you feel he might even just keep this Carmen. On other nights their roles are reversed, and the characterisation passes across. So tonight’s Don José, Alejandro Silva turns Escamillo on 30 April and Alexander Arias on 1 May. Again it’s striking how company-led this is, where everyone can melt into each other; you feel the whole ensemble could literally step up into these roles, and at some points might need to.

The towering Bull or Destiny is oddly also listed as Paul Brando on April 29, as well as 1 and 2 May, and Leandro Fernández (30 April). Either way there were two distinct dancers and this horned character has less delicacy to enact: he centres the action at critical points acting as Fate, neatly marrying myth and profession, anchoring bullfight into a death ritual figure. He’s also MC and Acosta has given him a more prominent role, which really works.

By the same token the prancing Captain of Dragoon’s and Don José’s commanding officer Zúñiga is taken by Leandro Fernández (29 April and 2 May matinee), Brandy Martínez (30 April and 2 May) and Paul Brando (1 May). These leads, melding into each other in alternate performances are all outstanding.

The ensemble are outstanding too and certainly deserve listing: Melisa Moreda, Cynthia Laffertté, Edgar Quintero, Ofelia Semanat, Anthony Quevedo, Daniela Francia, Noel Sánchez, Wendy Friol, Heidy Núñez, Alejandro Figueredo.

Though the music is mainly Schedrin’s refraction of Bizet, there’s a nod to other Latin-infused versions (about seven), and modern interpretation. Acosta adds music by three composers: Martin Yates (a conductor famed for resurrecting incomplete British symphonies like the early Bax in F minor and Moeran’s No. 2 in E flat, long thought lost). There’s even more percussion from Yhovani Duarte and Denis Peralta to edge the production’s Cuban and flamenco-based tang. It is a recorded track and twice jumped on this occasion.

Peter Mumford’s been lighting this show since the start, and as ever adds a doom-lit brilliance. Tim Hatley’s set with its ominous red circle curtain (a bit like the Shakespeare Globe logo, but on black) and particular the fiery costumes are a delight. Nina Dunn has freshened the projection and you see a moon-lit cloudbank and at some points a whole cellar-full of barrels. It’s all oppressive and at the same time bewitching.

Storytelling flickers like the fire between dancers. It helps – perhaps hinders –  to know the story a little. If so, you’ll miss what’s not there. And attend to some evanescent moments. So Don José’s fiancée vanishes, though we’re treated to the knife-fight between Carmen and another young woman setting up the initial drama. Crucially though some plot-points aren’t developed and look, well, pointless. In Act Two three women briefly slap down outsize cards so you can see they’re dealing with that scene: the one where Carmen doesn’t flinch from her fate. Only Carmen never even glances at them. So what’s the point? Surely that can be developed if it’s there at all.

On the plus side the opening with the narrative Bull figure over a prone Carmen echoes that “Tell me it’s not true” moment, from Blood Brothers, though there’s no heartbroken hymn here. The end eats the beginning in tragic circularity, an inevitable corollary of Carmen always fated to meet a man who falls too hard: only a matter of time and male toxicity.

Recalling the detailed storytelling in Matthew Bourne’s Midnight Bell, seen here twice, it’s hard not to reflect there are greater, more detailed storytellers in choreography. And some detail here is needed. Nevertheless Acosta would argue the smoulder and sensuality, sheer headlong ferocity of the dance, its emotive truth is all: especially in such a clear-cut headlong plunge into hedonism, sex and death. Yes, all that’s true. You can get away with gesture in Carmen more than about any other story. But a little more might render this outstanding in every sense. There’s quite a few Carmen ballets out there: not least the flamenco-infused film by Antonio Gades and Carlos Saura.

Nevertheless, it’s spectacular, thrillingly danced and consummately choreographed, leaving an indelible impression. And currently it’s the only Carmen ballet in any UK town. Certainly a must-see for anyone compelled by ballet; something we’re not likely to see in Brighton for years.

Production Manager David Pritchard, Technical Supervisor Douglas Nicholson, Technical Director for Lighting Pedro Benitez, Stage Manager Eduardo Peón, Sound Technician José Acedo, Wardrobe Manager Yunet Uranga, Wigs & Make-up Hannah Forbes, Production Stage Alex Nicholson.

Valid Productions :

Executive Producer Rupert Rohan Producer Anne-Louise Hawker

Production Assistant Nadine Quercia & Harriet Buckland

Company Manager Claudia Retureta

Physiotherapists Dr Noemi Serviat

Rehearsal Director Yaday Ponce. Acosta Carmen Photo Credit: Katja Ogrin

Rehearsal Teacher Verónica  Corveas Marketing Director Lester Vila Pereira Digital Marketing HdK – Fizz Woor

Marketing Consultant: makesthree

PR : Bread & Butter PR

Produced by Carlos Acosta, Original Sponsor Aud Jebsen. Sponsors The Oak Foundation and Mrs Aline Foriel-Destezet.

Published April 30, 2026April 30, 2026 by Simon Jenner