‘It’s a high-wire act. Every choice matters’: Danielle de Niese takes on opera’s most notorious femme fatale

‘I want every word, every gesture, to feel believable. That’s the only thing that matters’: Danielle de Niese, who is Carmen in Opera Australia’s new production. Photograph: Daniel Boud/Opera Australia

Not a flounce, ruffle or rose clenched between teeth is in sight when Danielle de Niese sashays onstage as Carmen – dressed in a boiler suit. The Australian-born lyric soprano’s Carmen will not be the Gypsy seductress audiences have come to expect. In Opera Australia’s new production, set in present-day Seville, she is a grounded woman ending another long shift in a cigarette factory.

She loosens the fastenings around the neck of her uniform – a glimpse of glistening shoulder, an arch of the back and throat. To her female co-workers, she is hot, exhausted and stiff. To the lads waiting and watching, she is something else.