Review: Opera North, La Boheme ****

Puccini's La Boheme, first seen in 1993, remains among her most enduring.

Updated to the late 1950s, the freezing garret becomes a spartan student flat in Rigsby mode, home to a battered armchair, motorbike, typewriter and quartet of friends.

The approach, almost televisual in pace and style – the comic harrying of the landlord, the bustling incident of Caf Momus – works well in this revival, staged with remarkable freshness by Peter Relton.

The characters, not always the case, show emotional depth, lending credibility to a plot that's as thin as one of Mimi's dresses.

Even so, Puccini wrings us out as usual and the fine international cast doesn't let him down.

The balance of Mimi and Musetta, Anne Sophie Dupreis and Yorkshire-born Sarah Fox, is admirable; one powerful in her fragility, the other fragile in her coquettish power.

Bulent Bezduz, after a strained start, develops into an impressive Rodolpho who certainly looks – and acts – the part. His harrowing cry at the death of Mimi chills the theatre.

There are excellent performances, too, by Marcin Bronilowski, Frederic Bourreau and Quirijn de Lang but underpinning the evening, or rather towering over it, is the pliant, detailed playing of the orchestra under Richard Farnes which is never less than brilliant.

Leeds Grand Theatre