The plain in Spain

called Doctor Sleep. Festival organizers say he’ ll appear with his son Owen King at the IFOA opening night PEN Canada Benefit: Double Feature. Atwood, pictured, will be at the festival with her new novel, MaddAddam, which McClelland & Stewart is set to publish in Canada on Aug. 27. Organizers say the lineup also includes this year’s International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

winner, Kevin Barry. The Canadian Press The temperature in Toronto last week should have been hot and steamy (it is June after all) but it was surprisingly cool. The same could be said for the National Ballet of Canada’s Carmen.

The ads promise “Lust. Betrayal. Murder.” And while this ballet (which takes its inspiration from Prosper Mérimée’s torrid 1845 novella) does include all of those traits, it never fully ignites.

Italian choreographer Davide Bombana originally created this work as a one-act, which Toronto audiences got a taste of in 2009. In this new, full-length version, you mostly have to wait until Act II to really feel any heat. That said, there are still some memorable vignettes early on.

The curtain rises on a powerful projected image of a couple coming together in an embrace. Contrasting this amorous silhouette are Don José and his innocent girlfriend Michaela sitting side by side, looking tense. It’s clear they are not in a good place. Don José’s fallen head-over-heels for Michaela’s polar opposite, the femme fatale Carmen. But Carmen won’t commit to Don José, and in a jealous rage he murders one of Carmen’s other suitors, Garcia, leader of the bandits.

Bombana’s choreography is athletic and modern, with no shortage of sexy high kicks and exhilarating jumps. I saw two different casts on Wednesday and Thursday evenings, and both sizzled technically. As Carmen on opening night, Heather Ogden was an inexhaustible firecracker, daring herself to jump higher at every opportunity, chiseled muscles protruding in her long, lean legs.

Greta Hodgkinson on Thursday evening was a sultry and naughty Carmen, performing brisk pirouettes with apparent ease. Guillaume Côté and Piotr Stanczyk, as Don José, did the best they could, but they clearly weren’t given enough opportunity by Bombana to mine the emotional depths of their characters.

There are several pas de deux between Carmen and Don José, but they’re so jam packed with technical tricks that the drama and passion got lost. And one can’t help but question the characters’ true motivations. For instance, why does Carmen appear emotionally detached even after witnessing Garcia being stabbed? Later, it’s hard to feel anything other than indifference for her

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label when she thrusts herself onto Don José’s knife.

And curiously, while there is no shortage of kissing and petting throughout and a graphic sex scene between Carmen and Escamillo (who is actually not a man, but a bull), many of those scenes feel more clinical than erotic.

There’s also an awkwardly placed scene in which four transvestite toreadors appear in fiery red flamenco skirts with giant black fans. One imagines Bombana added this for comic relief, but it comes right after an intense solo by Don José, thus breaking the dramatic flow.

The most poignant scenes featureMichaela,dancedbythe incomparable Xiao Nan Yu on Wednesday. Nan Yu possesses a unique and poetic musicality. The moment when she arches her back, offering herself to Don José, only to have him place his coat over her shoulders, is the emotional crux of the production. Stephanie Hutchinson also dances the role with a tenderness that tugs at the heartstrings.

There’s bold dancing on display by many others including Robert Stephen and Keiichi

You have to wait until Act II to feel any heat

Hirano as Garcia, Jirí Jelinek as Escamillo, and Lise-Marie Jourdain as Cigarette Girl.

And there’s no denying the seductive power of the score, which is a clever mix of live and taped music. Audiences familiar with the opera will recognize George Bizet’s melodies, which Bombana marries with Rodion Shchedrin’s 1967 re-orchestration. There’s also urban percussion sequences by Tambours du Bronx, and eerie sound effects by Meredith Monk. These unintelligible whispers may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I found the blending of classical and contemporary music fascinating.

Dorin Gal’s modern set is a sparse grouping of transparent panels which draw attention to Carmen’s sheer, fringed black and red dresses, and the shirtless male dancers’ toned physiques.

Bombana’s Carmen highlights the modern direction The National Ballet of Canada is moving in. But in order to leave the theatre feeling hot, this ballet needs more passion and emotional punch.