Bizet’s Carmen has long enthralled audiences with its gypsy flair, colour and passion – not to mention a score packed with hits that have taken on lives of their own outside the opera. In many ways it seems perfect material for the opera-spectacle of Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour.Gale Edwards’ production, which received its first outing in 2013, is set behind a giant CARMEN sign – a stand-in for HOLLYWOOD – the action taking place against the scaffolding, the gritty back-end of fame and prestige. Brian Thomson’s set is sombre and desolate, swathes of empty space with a patina of rust, into which cranes drop a tank and a jeep. John Rayment’s lighting design highlights the textural quality of the set early on before bursting into colour later in the show. Thelonely bleakness of the setting – somehow removed from the city-scape and harbour behind – adds authenticity to the boredom and discomfort of the soldiers as they wait for the girls to emerge from the cigarette factory, a subterranean bunker that opens in the centre of the stage.