IT IS nearly six years since Opera North staged this Tim Albery production of Macbeth and it is now enjoying a well-justified, if brief, revival. Modern dress does nothing to dull Verdi’s edge, even if gore levels remain high.

Johan Engels’ sparse, expressionist set and Bruno Poet’s subtle lighting, casting bizarre shadows, both remain. Apart from the vague suggestion of a castle, details of location have been stripped away, leaving ruthless ambition laid bare.

All the principals are new. The change is a distinct improvement, given that the grisly couple’s last incarnation here was as Wotan and Brünnhilde. Béla Perencz’s Macbeth boasts well-rounded tone that never sounds forced even at high decibels and his vacillation is persuasively terminal.

Kelly Cae Hogan surmounts a blustery start to develop a thrilling top to her already resonant soprano. She is not quite as devious a Lady Macbeth as she might be, but her sleepwalking scene is nicely paced. Victoria Sharp as her lady-in-waiting impresses with her multiple reactions. Jung Soo Yun gives an intense Macduff, though Paul Whelan’s competent Banquo lacks swagger.

All the murders take place on stage on a ubiquitous hospital bed tended by ‘nurses’ who look more like charladies than witches. Tobias Ringborg conducts fierily, allowing his brass choir splendid space. The chorus is everywhere forceful.

From Paris With Love is a puzzling new concoction by Rosalind Parker and Annabel Arden. Its declared intention is to reveal aspects of Bohemian life in the city. A first half of 19th century French and Italian operatic extracts is sung in the original, with the orchestra in the pit.

After the interval, we delve into café songs, with a quartet combo including accordion on stage led from the piano by James Holmes. Thereafter the full orchestra under David Parry returns, but this time on stage (where it should have been all along), accompanying a selection from four Offenbach operettas, this time given in English.

It is Ladies Night for the chorus, presumably to balance the exclusively male chorus used in Fanciulla.

So special adaptations have been made by chorus master Martin Wettges to the Offenbach.

There is no dancing, even in the cancan. So it is all rather a mishmash, and low-budget at that. Gabriela Itoc is the best of the soloists, seductive in ‘Depuis le jour’ from Charpentier’s Louise and sensuous in Édith Piaf’s ‘La vie en rose’. Soprano Jeni Bern finds an idiomatic stridency in the café and both tenor Peter Auty and baritone Geoffrey Dolton do their best to be chameleons in a rapidly changing landscape.

Parry’s flexible orchestra adds colour with Chabrier, Massenet – the meditation from Thaïs – and Ibert. But this show does not really belong as part of the main operatic schedule. • Macbeth continues in Leeds tonight, then on tour until March 18. From Paris only available on tour.