There are few things more thrilling than sitting 4 feet from 40 people singing Bizet at full force. Something about sympathetic vibrations, or the ways our hearts are constructed, overpowers rational thought and sweeps you up along with the crescendos. This isn’t the feeling of the true opera lover – it’s a visceral reaction to Dimpho di Kopane’s delightful presentation of “Carmen.” At last, an opera for those of us who enjoy movies with really loud explosions.

Dimpho Di Kopane, the “lyric theater company” on tour from South Africa, has a more assured hit with “The Mysteries,” still playing in repertoire. But if that dizzying experience left you hungry for more, “Carmen” will more than fit the bill. Set on the same raked wooden stage, surrounded by the same plain scaffolding as “The Mysteries,” this “Carmen” takes seriously its setting in the streets.

Milling about in 1970s finery or jackboots and soft military caps, the men ogle cigarette girls dressed in the pink shirtdresses of beauticians. If you catch them on a night when the libretto is performed in English, they take the opportunity to “wink at the girls and pinch their ass.” Real sex and violence swirl around in this world.

Nothing can prepare you for Pauline Malefane’s volcanic Carmen. You notice every flicker of contempt in her eyes, every catlike mood change. When she enters dressed in her mantilla and flounced dress in Act III, everything grinds to a halt so chorus members can snap her photo. She strikes a flattering pose, looking up under her lashes at the crowd around her. She’s a grand figure; Bizet would have loved her.

Andile Tshoni’s Don Jose might not have the power of an operatic tenor, but at close range his raspiness is endearing. I’m a fan of virtuosity and tradition, but it’s a tremendous relief to watch a show like this: Gloves off, and no need for amplification.

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“Pugilist Specialist” has had a longer tour than most reservists. Sailing into town after playing two dozen theaters in Britain, it had a good run at 59E59, and has now fetched up in the Culture Project’s basement theater. One could make a point about how this heady examination of soldiers in Iraq has literally gone underground, but it’s more interesting to goggle at its rapturous reception overseas.

Without doubt, Adriano Shaplin’s play is several cuts above its peers. His limber sentences and the grotesqueries he constructs trump similar attempts at getting inside the military’s elaborate confusion. But this production, grinding out in rigid, unimaginative style, kills the text’s momentum.