What a good-looking production of Rigoletto Opera North has put together. It’s a small detail but, when Maddalena tells her brother Sparafucile that the Duke is too gorgeous to be killed, it helps if he actually is. Rae Smith’s costumes help too – the women wear high-waisted pencil skirts – and she’s not afraid of colour; Themba Mvula has an unfair advantage as Marullo in eye-catching sapphire-blue tunic and trousers. Two details make this production stand out, however – a hunchless Rigoletto and Sir Willard White as Count Monterone.

Sir Willard has such presence, he dominates the scene in his white and gold African robes, and he draws a straight line from the Commendatore in Don Giovanni to another father dying at the hand of the man who seduced his daughter. Eric Greene’s Rigoletto has a tragic flaw instead of a deformity – a sharp tongue, so sharp it cuts himself, and brings down the Count’s curse. It also explains why he has no friends. He does, however, have a daughter, and Jasmine Habersham is nigh perfect as Gilda. Her voice is fresh and light as she sings of her love for ‘the poor student’ she has seen at church, but there is a darkness and sudden maturity after her seduction.

The acting throughout is excellent – for example, when Greene is impressing on duenna Giovanna (Hazel Croft) the importance of keeping Gilda locked up. When Sparafucile (Callum Thorpe) is persuading his sister Maddalena (Alyona Abramova) to entertain the Duke (Roman Arndt), their conversation has been going on for some time before we hear their words. During the Duke’s party, there’s a pizza delivery by bike for the security staff, with an argument over the order.

Thorpe’s Sparafucile is no pantomime villain, he’s running a clinical, efficient killing business. He has a rich deep voice, which makes his silence – watching his sister entertain the Duke, while he eats fruit with the knife to be used for killing – so much more effective. Abramova is a good foil for Gilda – a woman of the world capable of taking care of herself as against a teenager in the pangs of first love.

Smith’s set and Howard Hudson’s lighting design, while far from minimalist, is unfussy. It’s a basic black box set, framed with white strip-lighting which flickers for the lightning. Rigoletto’s home features balloons, a toucan on a swing and a zebra, while the tragedy plays out in a river-side shanty-town of burnt-out cars, tents and pop-up beershops.

The pace of the performance never lets up, yet the orchestra conducted by Garry Walker still brings out the detail of Verdi’s score and complements the singers. It all helps impel the story to its tragic end. It may have been the intention of Femi Elufowuju jr and Eric Greene to emphasise Rigoletto’s ‘otherness’ in terms of ethnicity but Greene’s performance has changed what is really rather an unpleasant story, particularly in these #MeToo times, into an exemplar of how a few thoughtless words can unleash a set of consequences which result in disaster.