For the finale to its Festival of Britten, Opera North has not made an easy choice. Though based on a Thomas Mann novella, the composer’s final opera lacks an inherently dramatic theme, revolving as it does around an old man’s obsession with a young lad and his parallel realisation that his creative powers as a writer are waning.

That such internalised themes do not flag in Yoshi Oida’s production – new to Leeds, but first seen in Aldeburgh six years ago – speaks volumes for the musical side of the evening. Richard Farnes directs his orchestra with impeccable control, dabbing in Britten’s evocations of a watery Venice with painterly aplomb while providing a featherbed foundation for singers and dancers alike.

Words are always important in opera, but nowhere more than in a piece concerned with ideas rather than action. There were brief flirtations here with surtitles, flashed from the side-boxes. But they were far too few, mostly confined to off-stage chorus and foreign tourists. Alan Oke, who in virtually every other respect makes a first-class Aschenbach, the elderly writer, is not easily intelligible. Peter Savidge’s diction, as the Mephistophelean co-traveller who assumes six other disguises, is much better but not irreproachable.

These two roles dwarf the rest of the cast. Oke, giving the impression of being caught entirely off guard, engenders sympathy in his predicament, against the odds, and often sings with a relaxed beauty of line that Britten could not have envisaged in Peter Pears, for whom he wrote the role. Savidge is theatrically versatile, especially witty as the Elderly Fop and as Hotel Barber, though he does not vary his tone as much as he might.

Emily Mezieres, happily androgynous as Tadzio, the young boy, not only moves smoothly but dances with an easy athleticism. Riika Laser is captivating as his mother, in a hat that would do Ascot proud. Their dancing colleagues exude a sense of fun that owes much to Daniela Kurz’s choreography (revived here by Katharina Bader).The chorus tellingly assumes a variety of cameos. Christopher Ainslie is engaging as Voice of Apollo and Damian Thantrey makes his mark as English Clerk.

The setting is less convincing. Textured back-boards and a tiny screen with watery images (reversed to provide a superfluous mirror) in Tom Schenk’s set hardly conjure Venice, though ubiquitous gondoliers ‘paddle’ unceasingly and real water allows an occasional splash. So the focus is on the score and here the evening is pretty persuasive. A daring choice, maybe, but a successful one. Further performances tonight, Oct 23 & 25, then on tour. www.operanorth.co.uk