THE season of Fatal Passions has peaked with Verdi’s masked ball, at which a love triangle turns needlessly lethal. This is Opera North’s first shot at the piece – not before time, you may say, after 40 years – and it has been entrusted to an old-stager with the company, Tim Albery, who also directed the successful revival of Madama Butterfly last month.

But the best news of all is that Richard Farnes has returned to conduct in Leeds for the first time since his superb Ring cycle. He may be one of the safest pair of hands in the business, but he doesn’t hold back here. There is always a problem with the contrast between the chilly Scandinavian setting – the court of Gustavo – and the hot-blooded Mediterranean score. Farnes uncovers both the snowstorms and the sunshine, slaloming through Verdi’s twists and turns with succulent crispness. The orchestra palpably enjoys the ride.

Albery updates the action from the 1790s to the 1930s or so, with Gustavo’s male courtiers all in powder-grey or fawn greatcoats and matching felt hats, like so many suspicious sleuths. Only Gustavo and Oscar his page wear black. A photograph in the programme shows Hannah Clark’s setting to be based on a Baroque salon at Drottningholm Palace, with high windows under which red curtains hang when the going gets conspiratorial. Beige leather sofas offer the only comfort in these sparse surroundings.

Rafael Rojas has trodden these boards many a time but never more earnestly than as Gustavo. His tenor is rarely relaxed but his commitment is total even if he is always more fiery than philosophical; his lower range is helpfully baritonal. As the object of his affections, the Hungarian soprano Adrienn Miksch, making an auspicious British debut, is a touching Amelia, threading a credible course between duty and passion.

Phillip Rhodes delivers gallons of warmth if not quite enough menace as Anckarström, the husband bent on revenge. Patricia Bardon sounded every inch a real contralto – a rare bird these days – as the fortune-teller Ulrica, got up like a French onion-seller in beret and neck scarf (almost the only real colour in Clark’s costumes): a voice of world class.

Tereza Gevorgyan is effervescent in the trouser role of Oscar, injecting much-needed humour whenever bleakness threatens; unaccountably, she appears at the ball in a dress but her élan is irresistible.

Albery’s production has moments where confusion almost takes over from clarity, and he is not helped by unwanted shadows in Thomas C. Hase’s lighting, but the musical side of the evening compensates juicily.

Further Leeds performances on February 10, 22 and 27 and March 2, then on tour until March 24. Box office: 0844 848 2720 or operanorth.co.uk