There was a massive scrap when Ross Stretton staged Mats Ek's Carmen for the Royal Ballet back in 2002. Ross who? Mats what? You might well ask. Stretton was the Royal's short-lived director (2001-2002), Ek a little-known Swedish choreographer, respected in Europe but not much liked in the UK. At least not for The Royal Ballet.

They are all classical grace, and Ek is a man with disruptive ideas. Instead of ballet's harmonies and symmetries, he has them moving in ructions, convulsing their bodies and miming grotesqueries. And as with his idioms, so with his ideas. His Carmen is not the luscious Hispanic fantasy that sugars the pill but a mongrel run-about, on-heat and off-message.

This surprise and slightly underrehearsed-revival, with the excellent Tamara Rojo as Carmen, reminds you of Ek's humanity, and also his radicalism.

Ek mocks our expectations of flamenco, from our sniffing at 1970s tourist tat to our current obsession with "authenticity", and then he demolishes the emotional crash barriers we have built around Carmen.

Beauty is disruptive, as is sex, as is no sex. Loyalty counts for little. The good are not rewarded, the bad not punished. His showing it helps.

Ek's Carmen is astringent and emollient. The other two ballets, Will Tuckett's The Seven Deadly Sins and Christopher Wheeldon's DGV, paled alongside. Good conducting though.

In rep until 21 February. Information: 020 7304 4000, www.roh.org.uk.