Johan Inger’s Carmen was strong when it opened in Sydney last year. Its Melbourne opening was shattering. The key roles were taken by the same dancers, including Jill Ogai in the title role and Callum Linnane as her killer Don José, but everything was in sharper focus.

Perhaps the experience of seeing the ballet for a second time gave the subject even more terrible immediacy. If so, that speaks well for Carmen; that it bears repeated viewings in a relatively short space of time. It may also have been that the Melbourne season of Carmen follows hard on the heels of Nijinsky, another ballet that asks dancers to dig deep into their dramatic skills.

There was more believable commitment to the vocal expressions of anger and anguish Inger asks for and therefore greater authority. The dancers’ brief burst of singing was better too, although none should give up their day job just yet.

Callum Linnane and Jill Ogai in The Australian Ballet’s Carmen. Photo © Kate Longley

Inger’s Carmen is based more closely on Prosper Merimée’s dirt-under-the-fingernails novella, published in 1845, than Bizet’s opera but the essentials most people know through...