The 70th Edinburgh International Festival’s opera programme is certainly going out on a high with Teatro Regio Torino’s production of La bohème. In fairness, the company has had a lot of practice, since Puccini’s opera premiered there in 1896 but, that, as we all know, is no guarantee of quality.

Director Alex Ollé has set the tale of life and love amongst the young and poor in an district of high-rise, low-cost housing; Alfons Flores’ set is of skeletal buildings, the outlines of their metal framework stark against Urs Schönebaum’s lighting, more poignant this summer in the UK than it would have been earlier this year. It’s a busy district too. Other people live and work here as well, and their stories are glimpsed in the background to Rodolfo and Mimi’s doomed love; one of the best performances in the Festival has to be the outraged lady diner in Café Momus, whose evening is destroyed when a cat-suited Musetta sprawls in an Eartha Kitt-ish way across her table.

Both Mimi (Erika Grimaldi) and Rodolfo (Giorgio Berrugi) had been heard earlier in the week in Verdi’s Requiem. Now Berrugi is definitely chatting up Mimi, and Grimaldi is perfectly aware of it and not wanting to give away that she is more than a tad interested. Rodolfo’s flatmates are well-drawn too. Nicola Ulivieri’s Colline is the quietest of the four, his ode to his old coat in Act 4 more than he probably sings in the rest of the opera, and none the worse for that. Benjamin Cho catches the exuberance of the musician Schaunard; the clowning when he returns with food and wine in Act 1 is deliciously done.

The second lovers are very different from Rodolfo and Mimi, the contrast in temperaments delightfully displayed by Kelebogile Besong (Musetta) and Simone Del Savio (Marcello). Besong owns the second act from her first appearance in Café Momus, despite stiff competition not only from the outraged lady diner but also from the blue-coiffed, white-suited staff. The embarrassment of the fellow diners is palpable, and it is clear that Matteo Peirone’s Alcindoro would like the earth to open up and swallow him. Flores’s set contrasts the vivid, bustling street market, including the illegal street traders chased off by police, with the chic fine-dining of Café Momus, which makes the flatmates’ horror at the size of the bill that bit more believable.

Act 3’s snow scene is nothing like a Christmas card, the whores and the late-opening night-club a backdrop to Mimi and Rodolfo, in turn, confiding in Marcello. Del Savio is understanding, consolation and sound commonsense to them both then, in a pitch-perfect change of mood, irascible and heated in his exchanges with Musetta.

The final Act, with both Rodolfo and Marcello missing their women, is delicately done, Rodolfo singing to a photo on his phone. Musetta, in a leopard-print jacket, brings Mimi to the flat; Rodolfo helps her up the stairs. Slumped in a chair, Grimaldi leaves us in no doubt that she is dying and Rodolfo in no doubt of her love. His grief, and that of his friends, is, understandably, very real.

The Chorus Teatro Regio Torino (chorus master Claudio Fenoglio) and the NYCoS Edinburgh Choir (director Mark Evans) create the joyous buzz of Christmas Eve in Act 2. Throughout, conductor Gianandrea Noseda and the orchestra bring out the sheer melodiousness of Puccini’s score and make the music totally believable in Flores’ harsh urban environment.