Bizet's Carmen is probably the most popular of all operas, and vast, arena-style productions have always been integral to its performance history. Whether such an approach can do the work justice is, however, open to question. Its power as a study of the perils of sexuality is beyond dispute, but Carmen is also an exercise in dramatic compression, in which there is not a single redundant gesture, musically or theatrically. Add something to it, and you risk diminishing its force as a whole.

Such problems beset David Freeman's Albert Hall staging, first seen in 2002. A serious attempt to do the work on the grandest of scales, it suffers from Freeman's awkward need to bring on stage events that Bizet left off it. We see the start of the factory cat fight that draws José irrevocably into Carmen's orbit, damaging Bizet's fundamental point that we never know whether or not she has deliberately instigated the brawl to attract José's attention. The final murder is accompanied by a slow-motion enactment of Escamillo's triumph in the bullring, which blunts the scene's impact.

Carmen and José are played by Imelda Drumm and John Hudson. Hudson, baleful of voice, suggests the potential psychopath from the outset. Drumm, who strays worryingly off pitch in moments of crisis, plays Carmen very much as a carefree slut, undermining Bizet's point that Carmen is an assertive woman aware that death is the price she must pay to preserve her sexual integrity. Natasha Marsh is a fine Micaela, though the best performance comes from Leigh Melrose as Escamillo - charismatically glamorous, though all the while making you aware of the man's fundamental cruelty. The opera is well conducted, though not greatly so, by Peter Robinson. The amplification, however, is over-reverberant, and even though the performance is sung in English, only Melrose adequately puts the text across.

· Until March 6. Box office: 020-7838 3100.