Carmen and Frankenstein are without a doubt two of the most over-worked tropes in our culture, the myths of the evasively seductive gypsy and the human monster machine being lazily recycled and plundered and vulgarised in various forms to the point at which their authentic primal power has been altogether deflated. So it was with a heavy sigh that I anticipated their two latest danced iterations. No surprises were likely, and none were delivered.

It’s not bad, it’s just not good enough – yet another retread of familiar material

The list of choreographers – Roland Petit, Alberto Alonso, John Cranko, Mats Ek, Antonio Gades, Matthew Bourne, Carlos Acosta – who have had a go at Bizet’s poor old traduced score, either in its original orchestration or in Rodion Shchedrin’s bastardised suite, could be continued ad infinitum. Petit and Bourne at least tried to create scenarios that didn’t simply mimick the opera’s narrative or the Hispanic setting; others have stuck much closer to it and have therefore been dragged into cliché. To this latter number must be added the Swede Johan Inger, whose version was premiered in Spain in 2015 and has travelled widely since. Now it’s been taken into English National Ballet’s repertory.

The programme note claims that the performance is ‘unlike any other’ – a reading that returns to Bizet’s source in Prosper Mérimée’s novella, focuses on domestic violence and tells the tale through José’s ‘tortured psyche’.

But apart from the excision of the additional character of Micaela and the addition of a spectral androgynous child – presumably representing the young José, who loses his innocence and runs into trouble with a bunch of creepy-crawly figures of fate shrouded in black – the opera’s outline is closely followed without incorporating or implying any of Mérimée’s emotional or structural nuances.

The choreography, heavily indebted to the sportive and angular idiom of Inger’s compatriot Mats Ek, reminded me at times of a step-aerobics class: wilfully unpretty, but vigorously functional, with lots of deep pliés and running on the spot.

To the indignities inflicted on Bizet by Shchedrin is heaped an electronic mash-up by one Marc Alvarez. Not nice. But if it isn’t half as original as it thinks it is, the show is certainly quite tight, slick and glossy. Its strongest element is the spare and elegant set design by Estudio Dedos: eight panels, illuminated from within, glide across the stage to form walls and rooms that enclose and separate, hide and reveal. And a well-rehearsed company dances with terrific panache. Two juniors have been promoted to leading roles: Minju Kang has plenty of glamour as Carmen, even if Inger doesn’t allow her to suggest the dangerous contrarian outsider, obsessed with her duende. Her José is Rentaro Nakaaki, a beautiful limber mover – I’d like to see him in something more substantial.

Some advice for English National Ballet’s director Aaron S. Watkin: perhaps try looking a bit further and mining the riches of the back catalogue. Why not revive Massine’s La Boutique fantasque from 1919, or a Ballets Russes classic? How about Jack Carter’s The Witch Boy or Roland Petit’s L’Arlésienne?

There is one compelling reason to sit through Mark Bruce’s hour-long take on Frankenstein, and that is the mesmerising Jonathan Goddard. Slithering into half-life as he attempts to understand what and who he is, pathetically sensitive to his alienation from ordinary humanity yet unable to control his impulses, he embodies all the poignancy of the Monster’s condition without exaggeration or sentimentality.

The rest of the company give able performances, but they pale beside his cadaverous intensity, and everything else about the show seems superficial – the gratuitous appearances of a brooding winged sphinx, some spooky sound effects, choreography with bland balletic overtones.

It’s not bad, it’s just not quite good enough – yet another retread of familiar material. Dance needs to find other stories to tell.