Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk was one of English National Opera's signature productions of the 1980s, yet, unaccountably, it has not been seen at the Coliseum for a decade. It returns now as spectacularly intense as ever - in some respects, in fact, positively enhanced. Anyone who saw either of the earlier incarnations needs no further recommendation from me to go again; those who did not should seize the opportunity to experience one of the masterpieces of 20th-century opera in a staging that realises all its raw power and strangeness.
David Pountney's teemingly detailed production, set in a meat factory complete with carcasses and machinery, has a grandeur and complexity that harks back to an era when ENO was blessed with the financial resources to mount shows on this lavish scale. It's heartening that in these more cash-strapped times the company can bring it to life again so exuberantly.
The action veers between cartoon absurdity and ferocious cruelty, and what is conveyed most of all is the sheer danger and daring of Shostakovich's work. In some ways the wonder is not that Stalin had it publicly condemned in 1936, but that it had been running in Russia for almost two years before the axe fell. This tale of a bored middle-class woman in a provincial town may be a savage commentary on 19th-century Russian society but its relevance to what was happening in the post-revolution Soviet Union must have been inescapable. The sheer exuberance of the score, with its vertiginous swings between brittle satire, dissonant expressionism and luscious romanticism, goes for broke at every opportunity. It is a young man's opera - Shostakovich was 26 when he finished it - that pushes at every conventional boundary.
The cast for this revival is superb. Vivian Tierney has done nothing better than this performance as Katerina Ismailova, magnetically charting her progress from listless neglect to amoral fury, and tirelessly surmounting all the vocal challenges. Robert Brubaker is equally fine as her weak-willed lover Sergei and Pavlo Hunka creates a monstrous portrait of her father-in-law Boris. The gallery of cameos is just as well drawn, with John Graham-Hall nearly stopping the show as the Shabby Peasant. Roberto Salvatori is a richly comic Chief of Police, complete with Uncle Joe Stalin moustache, and Leah-Marian Jones makes a seductive Sonyetka. Mark Wigglesworth's conducting is alive to every brazen colour and every grotesque image in the score. The orchestra plays wonderfully for him and the chorus sing their hearts out. Just go and see it.
• In rep until July 5. Box office: 020-7632 8300.
