Olga Borodina is back at the Met as Carmen this season. But there are significant differences this time around. Most notably, her husband and Mariinsky co-star Ildar Abdrazakov has been added as Escamillo, and the production has been promoted out of the staff conductors’ pool and, at least temporarily, the bailiwick of James Levine.

Mr. Levine used to conduct Carmen on a regular basis, but he has not done so for many years now. In the production with Agnes Baltsa, Jose Carreras, and Samuel Ramey, he drew out of the piece an intensity usually reserved for his Wagner – significant, since the knock on the original performances of 1875 was that the work was too Wagnerian for the Opera Comique. Tuesday evening, however, it was painfully obvious that some of this intensity had worn away.

Ms. Borodina’s gypsy mezzo sounds even duskier than in previous seasons, no doubt a direct result of several more years at the cigarette factory. Hers could very well be the finest pure mezzo active today. The tones are always rich and powerful. They are also very deep, not only in the sense of tessitura, but, more importantly, in their total involvement with each individual sound. When Olga Borodina sings a note, any note, she sets a standard.

It was a treat to hear a true mezzo sing the role of Carmen, since many of the most famous interpreters of the role were actually mezzo wannabes, otherwise intelligent women who believed – often incorrectly – that they could stretch their voices down to the requisite caverns of the lungs. For sheer vocal quality, it is hard to beat Ms. Borodina, even by delving deeply into one’s own dusty record collection.

Although she plumbed the depths of the music successfully, Ms. Borodina barely scratched the surface of her character. This was the most low-energy Carmen in memory, and her sedentary habits dragged the rest of the cast down with her. Mostly she sat or lay on strategically placed blocks.

To her credit, Ms. Borodina attempted a few dance steps – a departure from her European performances – but a few tentative do-si-dos during the swirling big number were hardly enough to snap us all out of our torpor. It didn’t help that Mr. Levine was at his most turgid mid-opera, during what otherwise is usually an adrenaline boost. It was difficult to determine whether the enervation originated on the stage or in the pit, but it certainly was palpable.

This is a slippery slope, but let’s follow it down anyway: This Carmen was simply not sexy. I do not mean to imply that Ms. Borodina is not sexy; what her physical attributes are and how she chooses to present them are her business, not mine. But her persona this night was certainly not passionate. Rather she was phlegmatic not aloof like some of the more sadistic psychosexual Carmens of the Anne Sophie von Otter variety – simply detached, lethargic, and, yes, a little bored. She was just going through the motions (or, should I say, not going through them).

Neil Shicoff, by contrast, was extremely emotive as Jose. He combined a strong and supple lyric-dramatic tenor with a highly invested characterization. I’m sure Ms. Borodina noticed that his ovations were considerably longer than any of her perfunctory smatterings of applause. Mr. Abdrazakov was a surprisingly weak toreador, with absolutely atrocious French diction. Stephen West, as Zuniga, exhibited a much more resonant lower register.

Edyta Kulczak and Alyson Cambridge, as Mercedes and Frasquita respectively, tried very hard to enliven the proceedings and to motivate their friend out of her somnambulism. They were fine as singers, hitting some especially tricky high notes, but their elan was not infectious. Hei-Kyung Hong was a sweet and moving Micaela, though I must admit that this is one of my favorite roles in all of opera and so I tend to think of all of its interpreters as exceptional creatures.

Perhaps the most telling part of the evening was Ms. Borodina’s flaccid Seguidilla. This signature piece is often used by lieder singers of the lower register as an encore at recitals. It allows women of a certain age and body type to let us in on the secret that they could be femmes fatale if only they had the chance. The effect is to leave the audience with a charge of electricity. In the present case, we were left wanting.

Oh, one more thing. It is definitely time to retire the sets of Franco Zeffirelli. Let’s just say that I overdosed on macrame back in the 1960s.