Carmen, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Glyndebourne, Prom 15/Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Royal Albert Hall, London

How do you revamp a vamp?

Ten days after a rapturously received opening night, it should come as no surprise that David McVicar's Carmen – his first production for Glyndebourne – is a sell-out success. Visually it's beautiful and bold; a bruising collision between Goya and Lautrec. Musically it's superb, with the most responsive chorus you're likely to hear live, and a driven, detailed reading from conductor, Philippe Jordan. Dramatically, it's clear and punchy. As a vehicle for Swedish mezzo Anne Sofie von Otter or a chance to re-examine one of opera's most hackneyed female archetypes, however, it's a squandered opportunity. For all its sweat-drenched, self-consciously predatory sexuality, McVicar's Carmen merely revamps the vamp.

So pity the actress tempted to play against type. One of the most poignant quotes in Carmen's pre-publicity came from its lead. When asked whether she – a tall, boyish, Nordic blonde – had adequate sex-appeal to play the self-destructive Spanish siren, von Otter pointed to her children. They, she said, were proof that she could be sexy, before reiterating her enthusiasm for the brittle physicality of McVicar's production. Sadly, babies do not prove sexiness, they prove love, but of course von Otter is sexy! She's intelligent, quick-witted, coolly beautiful, slyly humourous. Can she play Carmen? Yes. Just not like this.

Perhaps I'm the wrong person to judge female sex-appeal, but it seems to me that the defining quality of Carmen is her difference to other women. Here, Carmen's difference lies in exaggeration. She moves like the other women in the cigarette factory, drinks like them, fights like them, but more so. They are, as Zuniga (the fabulous Jonathan Best) says, cats. But imagine what could have been had von Otter's singing led the way. This is a crafty, linguistically astute artist whose shading on the repeats of "Peut-être jamais" is far sexier than any amount of bump and grind. Had McVicar played on her subtlety, had Carmen been the long, cool drink on a hot, steamy evening, that would have been sexy indeed. But enough day-dreaming. Vocally, von Otter is fascinating; intrepid in her register breaks, beautifully idiomatic with a dusty, guttural l'accent du midi. Christine Rice is a luxuriously clear Mercédès, Mary Hegarty a sparky Frasquita, Laurent Naouri a plush Escamillo, Lisa Milne the perfect Micaëla. And though Marcus Haddock seemed unyielding as Don José, it was he, not von Otter, who won the applause. My feeling is that this show will get better with repetition and stronger with revival, but how I wish McVicar had brought the stillness and intent of his Scottish Opera Madama Butterfly to poor, slutty Carmen.

Radio has traditionally been the sanctuary for presenters less blessed with beauty than their TV counterparts. But this week Classic FM announced former ITV reporter Katie Derham as the latest "glamorous" addition to their roster. Derham's elliptical comment on her new role was: "It's OK to like Debussy as well as Dido." Crumbs. Does she see contradiction in the appreciation of French Expressionist and English Restoration music? Or was she perhaps referring to Purcell's well-known masterpiece, Dido and Eminem? Whatever. With the help of some friends, here are some further suggestions of loosely alliterative but otherwise unrelated things that it's OK to like in the context of a Classic FM soundbite: All Saints and Saint-Saëns, Buxtehude and Bucks Fizz, John Adams and Bryan Adams, Villa-Lobos and Los Lobos, Fingal's Cave and Chas 'n' Dave, Frank Martin and Ricky Martin, Kennedy and The Dead Kennedies. If anyone can better current front-runner The Band and Entartete Musik, please email your soundbite to the address below. The prize will be a glossy photo of Russell Watson and a complimentary cigar sent in from lower-case lovelies bond with their "stunning" debut CD. Bonne courage!

Back at the BBC, I note that Marcus from Big Brother is this year's voice of The Proms. Alas, Britain's favourite Geordie only appears in the adverts so we're unlikely to hear live commentary along the lines of "Dee thir'y foower at the Proms and Lennud Slatkin is lift'n' his ba'on". Still, the message behind this appointment is admirably inclusive: you don't have to know Per Norgard, to pick but one of this season's more obscure composers, to dislike his Sixth Symphony, subtitled At the End of the Day.

Were any Big Brother fans lured to Prom 15 for their first classical experience, I doubt they would have lasted the course. Why should they? If you didn't know Brahms's First Symphony – the second-half's succulent carrot to the first half's sharp stick – there'd be no reason to stay. At the end of the day, despite Thomas Dausgaard's assertive conducting of the wonderful Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Norgard's Sixth was not only a prime example of the worst trends in modern symphonic writing but also one of the most off-putting opening pieces imaginable. Like fellow Dane, Poul Ruders, Norgard has a penchant for the inexorable colonic shifting of the lowest bass instruments. Like Ruders, he contrasts these jurassic flexings with astral-bright flashes of treble. Like Ruders, he plays with rhythmic figures, suggesting folk or jazz. Unlike Ruders, he makes no connection between these elements, supplies little in the way of middle-range orchestration, uses an unconscionable amount of glissandi, and has no idea when or how to stop. It was as if John Williams had scored some sketches for a close-up on a dinosaur's yawn – a vast maw, a glint of raptor-gnashers, a void in the middle – and simply joined them up.

If Nikolaj Znaider's stiff, discordant performance of Nielsen's messily whimsical Violin Concerto failed to reclaim much spirit, the peg-bending humidity in the Albert Hall was partly to blame. Which made the second half's energy all the more remarkable. Discarding a baton, Dausgaard drew a fervent, poised and radiant Brahms from his players: daringly hushed at times, ebullient and brazen at others, rhythmically forceful and imaginatively coloured. The relief was palpable but if any concert goes to prove that there must be exceptions to the carrot-and-stick premiere-concerto-symphony sequence, this was it.

a.picard@independent.co.uk

'Carmen', Glyndebourne (01273 813813), to 24 August. The opera is broadcast on BBC2 and relayed live to Somerset House, London, WC2, 17 August, 4.45pm