The inexorable, sunbaked working-out of a tragic destiny ... Bizet’s Carmen should set hearts aflutter. David McVicar’s production, revived at Glyndebourne, settles for clutter. Crowds mill and jostle on the shallow acting area of Michael Vale’s fussy sets for the first two acts, the opening illuminated by that weird stagey light never sighted outside a proscenium arch (are they inside or out of doors? Is it day or night?). The chorus’s exit from Lillas Pastia’s Piranesi-tiered tavern is lengthy and contrived, though Act 3’s existential murk, a Beckettian mountain pass, is suitably ominous. This 2002 Glyndebourne vintage has not aged well.

The Curacao-born Tania Kross is the new libertarian gypsy and is distinguished from her fellow factory-workers in Act 1 by the only plum-coloured bodice on stage: a good old-fashioned method of signalling importance. A sensual physique is topped by an Afro wig that conceals her face and makes her seem unnecessarily dumpy. This Carmen is comfortably cuddlesome. Of the wildcat at bay or the caged bird longing to be free there is little sign, though the last act’s confrontation with her lover is touching, much as the killing of a kitten is touching.

The voice is smooth, lyrical and mellow in the lower register but without the snarl or tang the ideal Carmen should muster. For dramatic vocal thrust, honours go to the Don José of Brandon Jovanovich. The American tenor has fine presence, acts passably and has an evenly produced voice that takes in trumpet tones and Gallic plangency. His finely controlled Flower Song provides the performance’s most stylish singing – on the first night he won the evening’s biggest ovation, second only to Kate Royal’s Micaëla. This young British soprano whose career has established her internationally is obviously the recipient of national hopes left unfulfilled by Andy Murray. Wayne Tigges’s Escamillo is vocally lightweight and a dramatic cipher.

The production emerges blandly as a nice sad story about nice people. Glyndebourne audiences can take stronger meat, but McVicar’s productions lately seem to go into safe mode for established institutions . It is not helped by conductor Stéphane Denève’s sometimes perfunctory gallop through the score. The soft-grained orchestral textures and refined playing reflect nothing of the music’s underlying dramatic tug and buoyant theatricality.