Casual punters may not care that two of the items in the Royal Ballet's latest triple bill (William Forsythe's In The Middle, Somewhat Elevated and Nacho Duato's Por Vos Muero) also appeared in the company's last programme but one.
But they may detect some fraudulence in the fact that ballets which were first sold to us under the title Enduring Images, have now been recombined under the label Cross Cultures.
It gives the titles little authority. Yet while it is arguable that Duato's stylistic mish-mash requires little better, Forsythe's work has more claim to credibility, if only for the sake of some of Wednesday's cast - Johan Kobborg, who flickered through the dance like a suave Mephistopheles, and Zenaida Yanowsky, who found mysteries at its edges.
Unfortunately, many of the other dancers looked outwitted by the pace of Forsythe's demands and the audience had to wait until the end of the show for the main attraction, the company premiere of Mats Ek's garish, funny, touching but oddly elusive Carmen.
This was created in 1992 and like most other dance treatments is set to Rodion Shchedrine's flashy suite from the Bizet score.
Yet compared to others it is far less dazzled by the story's hot sex and Spanish frills and far more aggressively curious about the power play between Carmen, Escamillo and Don Jose.
For Ek , the predatory sensuality of his heroine aligns her with the men in the piece - hence the trademark cigar that juts from her mouth as she swaggers around the stage. With Escamillo she plays as an equal, but timid, domestic Jose twitches like a rabbit in the glare of her desires.
And what starts out for him as a rollercoaster ride of physical and emotional revelation ends up as a kind of suicide. He's the tragic victim, rather than Carmen.
Ek's tells his story with a vibrant energy, and with his usual mix of classical and sometimes grotesquely vernacular dance. What this style articulates best, however is the framing action of the drama, rather than the emotional climaxes.
The gasp of foreplay, when Carmen reads Jose's palm, and stabbing her finger into his loveline yanks a blood red handkerchief from under his shirt is far more arresting than the insipid love duet which follows, in which Ek's language is unable to summon the urgency of desire.
Within such limitations the dancers appear constrained. As Carmen, Sylvie Guillem is a wonderfully witty flirt, while Jonathan Cope is an outrageously pretty Escamillo and Massimo Murru a haunted Jose, yet none of them are allowed to be convincing lovers. Ek may have produced an entertaining, inventive gloss on Carmen but he also put out its fire.
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