THE critic torn between two gorgeous gals, in this case Emma Kirkby at the York Early Music Festival and Carmen, throws himself on the mercy of his editor's decision. The choice this time fell on the lady of Spain, mainly because she is in town all week.

Clive Marshall's production of Bizet's classic little shocker is an excellent team show. It needs to be: counting the children who are very well drilled there are virtually 100 in this cast. It comes most vividly to life when the chorus is aroused as, for example, when the ladies are stirred to anger by the antics of the strutting Lieutenant Zuniga.

The opening of the tavern scene is not a homely cabaret with a couple of gypsy dancers but a massed twirl straight out of a middle-eastern harem. There is plenty of raucous rejoicing outside the bull-ring, heightening the contrast with the tawdry tiff that leads to Carmen's death.

Patricia Casement, whose operatic skills have developed steadily over the years, is well and truly ready for the mantle of Carmen, which she assumes with a firm mezzo that is beautifully in place right from her opening Habanera. There is probably room for a touch more earthiness, a little more hardness in her approach to a Don Jos who is always going to be putty in her hands. But this is an impressive achievement.

Her Jos, making his operatic debut, is Adrian Stone-Holmes. There were understandable nerves in his early appearances yesterday: he vacillated wildly between the heroic and the wimpish. When he let himself go after the interval, his tuning became much more secure. But we needed to feel much stronger of his self-belief, personally and as Jos. The contrast with Emily Smith's assured Micala in Act One was particularly telling. The musicality of her phrasing, both here and in her Act Three aria - always a crowd-pleaser (with telling horns here) - was a constant joy. She was the down-home country girl to a T.

Clive Goodhead's firm Morales, the lively pairing of Julia Ledger and Kylie Bradburn as Frasquita and Mercds, and Ian Thomson-Smith's proud Escamillo (despite a wig right out of Spartacus), are all vital cogs in the machine. The smugglers could afford to milk more from the comedy Bizet intended for them.

Despite some early longueurs, Alasdair Jamieson kept a firm grip on his orchestra, who balanced the singers especially well in Act Three. A spirited evening that deserves to pull the crowds.

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Updated: 15:10 Wednesday, July 09, 2003