Born in Scottish Opera’s Five:15 programme with Remembrance Day, the partnership of Stuart MacRae and Louise Welsh have also delivered the longer Ghost Patrol. The Devil Inside, however, is their first full-length work and, under Matthew Richardson’s direction, work it most certainly does.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s tale of desire and damnation The Bottle Imp is the inspiration for the haunting and intense realisation but, whereas the short story is set in 19th century Hawaii, the opera is emphatically in the 21st century and somewhere in the West.

It starts with two backpackers coming to a grand mansion. The old man dwelling there, asks if they have money to buy the bottle which will give them their every desire. Richard is keen but has no money, James has misgivings and fifty dollars, which the old man thinks is not enough. But he parts with the virulent green bottle, warning them it must be sold for less before they die, else they are damned to Hell.

To a penthouse office, where James is a wealthy property developer. Richard has come with $49.99 for his turn of the bottle. James, initially loath, hands it over and is released from his fears – then gets the girl, Catherine.

She develops cancer and James decides to buy back the bottle to save her life – only Richard, by now an addict, has sold and bought back the bottle so often it is only worth a penny. Travelling the world to find somewhere with smaller coins and someone to buy, they have no success, till Catherine persuades a vagrant to buy the bottle, make himself rich and sell it back to her. By this time, Richard has caught up with them, buys back the bottle, and his damnation, but with one final wish for the others.

Nicholas Sharratt is excellent as the eager, then twitchy Richard. As he lies in his leather chair, describing the anguish of the addict, he catches perfectly the insidious ‘more, more, more’ he attributes to the imp.

Ben McAteer (James) is a Scottish Opera Emerging Artist for 2015/16 and, on this performance, the accolade is justified. His love scenes with Catherine (Rachel Kelly) have warmth and sincerity. As he explains the wedding anniversary presents, or leaps to conclusions about what Catherine is trying to tell him, he engages our sympathy. Kelly, cool and elegant in white, has some gorgeous melodic lines and a couple of intense arias. The ensemble is completed by Steven Page as the Old Man and the Vagrant

Samal Blak’s minimalist and largely monochrome set works well with Ace McCarron’s lighting. Michael Rafferty conducts the 14-piece orchestra in MacRae’s economical score - high and jangly for the imp, jaggy and spiky for the world travel, when the silhouette of a plane moves across the backcloth. An insistent three-note motif introduces Richard’s addiction scene and Hell is portrayed by portentous tympani so far to the left in the pit it could be in the street.