After working for 25 years for America's Peabody Conservatory of Music, I imagined that when I retired to Fishguard I would have to travel to a major city to enjoy superb opera. I was wrong! The annual Summer Opera at Rhosygilwen can give as equally thrilling a performance as anything I've seen at the Met or Covent Garden.

The performance of Bizet's Carmen this past Friday was scorching-- not sure whether it reached the temperatures in Tata Steel’s last remaining blast furnace at Port Talbot, but the heat generated was welcome on a chilly summer night. It got a vociferous standing ovation. But the clincher case as I walked out following the performance. One man was declaiming to all and sundry: That was an Ollie Watkins.

Carmen, of course, is steamy. The 1875 premiere in Paris shocked and scandalized the audience. The heroine was no chaste virgin, as operatic tradition demanded, but a hedonistic gypsy determined to live life on her own terms and love where she chose.

Soprano Ilar Toft was vocally fabulous in the notoriously demanding title role. She also projected the seductive allure that made it credible for the soldier Don José (gloriously sung with great feeling by Graham Neal) to loose his head over her. Catrin Aur, with her golden voice, movingly portrayed Micaela, the girl Don José abandons.

In turn, Carmen abandons Don José for the Toreador Escamillo. That role was sung by Richard Morris, with all the machismo one could desire. The machismo was evident from the Overture, when Escamillo strutted round the audience, kissing the hands of a few chosen ladies. The 50 plus cast, orchestra and production crew gave it their all.

Cantorion Aberteifi, the acclaimed Cardigan-based choir conducted by Alistair Auld, took singing roles as soldiers, cigarette girls, gypsies, smugglers, and the crowd at the bullfight with great panache. Bizet died before he could know that his opera would soon become one of the great crowd-pleasers in the repertoire. The Habanera and Seguidilla and the Toreador Song from are among the best known of all operatic arias. The Tallis Chamber Orchestra did Bizet’s music proud.

The direction was by Fleur Snow. She’s been coming with her brother and her parents (who live in Ceredigion) to concerts at Rhosygilwen since the age of eight.

After training at the Royal Welsh College of Music, Fleur has forged an impressive directing career at a very young age and is currently working at Theater St. Gallen in Switzerland.

She brought two of her colleagues from Switzerland with her-- Malou Pohl de Rezende to create the wildly eclectic costumes; and Jaemie Elasser for the effective set design.

The whole production team did a highly imaginative job in staging the opera in the round in Rhosygilwen’s Neuadd y Dderwen (Oak Hall). T

he action often spilled over. We first saw Carmen, for example, through the windows, dancing round the fountain in the softly illuminated courtyard.

That sense of space spilling over was enhanced by Neuadd y Dderwen’s lofty ceiling, somewhat like the upturned timbers of a ship, with fairy lights strung up the wooden pillars.

Audience members’ fashion choices ranged from jeans and sweaters for those picnicking outdoor to cocktail glamour for those who had opted for the gourmet supper in the Orangery. Rhosygilwen has a notable chef in Guy Morris.