But at such a young age, the world, for Steggall, is an oyster.

He has segued into the world of opera of late and has undertaken to direct Le Tragedie de Carmen, Peter Brook's adaptation of Bizet's infinitely popular opera, at the Wexford Opera Festival next month.

Brook's 1981 adaptation of Carmen is one of the highlights of the festival's series of short programmes. It condenses all of the action, and more, into a chamber opera, retaining much of the best-loved musical moments of Bizet's score.

Andrew Steggall directs and Gavin Carr conducts the Orchestra of the Wexford Festival Opera.

Steggal's background, however, is in acting, not music, which he sees as a true strength in the arena of opera. He played Eric in An Inspector Calls, directed by Stephen Daldry and in 2003 he established The Motion Group, a theatre company dedicated to ambitious productions such as The Soldier's Tale.

"I'm not distracted by whether it's quavers or semiquavers or whatever but rather I concentrate on the story that people are telling. I just focus on the action and drama within the story. The interesting thing about opera is that there's an extraordinary inflexibility therein. An actor can choose to say a line when, how and in whatever rhythm they like but with an opera singer, a lot of that is already decided for you."

Steggall is a good-humoured and good-looking guy and decidedly self-assured, as one would hope a director to be naturally, but to the point that it really is hard to believe that he is so young. He confides that he actually deems Brooks adaptation to be a better-written piece than Bizet's original.

"Bizet's original is in some ways quite a compromised work in that it underwent several changes several times. Carmen as we know it doesn't appear exactly the way Bizet intended it.

Brook may have restored something of what Bizet wanted because he's gone back to the original Merrime novel and he's created a new work which I think holds up an illuminates the real core of Carmen, which is essentially about jealousy and love and what it does to us."

Drawing from the world of film noir in his interpretation of Brook's work, Steggall gives little else away as to what audiences can expect from this young director. Who knows . . . within three weeks the arts world might hitherto know him as "that Carmen guy".

'La Tragedie de Carmen' ( Bizet/ Brook) will be performed at Dun Mhuire in Wexford Town 1, 4, 7, 13 June: 3:30pm; June 10, 16