Entertainment

New spin on opera is D-lightful

High tech means nothing to opera buffs: Give ’em high C’s any day. So maybe Bizet’s “Carmen” isn’t the most obvious candidate for the 3-D treatment.

But “Carmen in 3D” — the first opera filmed using 3-D wizardry, opening today — looks and sounds terrific. Yes, you do have to wear the funny glasses, but this technology — the same used in “Avatar” — left me headache-free even after almost three hours in the theater.

Director Julian Napier set up his cameras in London’s venerable Royal Opera to capture live performances of this 1875 tale of a soldier’s fatal obsession with a Gypsy cigarette girl. In the final-act parade scene, confetti whirls overhead and the bullfighters’ capes seem to flap right in the viewers’ faces.

At other times, the camerawork places you so close to the action you’ll feel as if you’re onstage among the smugglers and toreadors.

Francesca Zambello’s handsome production features earth-toned 1800s costumes in gentle relief against terra-cotta-colored walls. A few stage effects, such as Carmen’s knife fight with a co-worker, might read better from a balcony — close up, they looked pretty fake.

Though the cast includes no superstars on the level of Plácido Domingo or Renee Fleming, the singers are all solid. Bryan Hymel is a standout as the jealous Don Jose — he’s a natural, warm actor with a strong if unconventional, rather steely tenor.

Christine Rice’s Carmen has a pleasing mezzo and gamely throws herself into brash dance sequences whose flying skirts blur the border between choreography and gynecology. Baritone Aris Argiris as the studly bullfighter Escamillo and soprano Maija Kovalevska as Jose’s forsaken sweetheart Micaëla sing prettily but act stiffly.

With its B-list casting and muted visuals, this “Carmen” won’t blow the Met’s popular “Live in HD” series out of the water, but opera buffs and newbies alike will find plenty to bravo.