By Michael Kennedy [Opera, 1 December 2010]

The last time I encountered the work of the South African-born director Alessandro Talevi and the set and costume designer Madeleine Boyd was at last summer's Buxton Festival in Cornelius's The Barber of Baghdad, generally regarded as instantly forgettable-but not, let me make clear, as a production. Now teamed up with the lighting designer Matthew Haskins, the pair makes its Opera North debut in Britten's masterly adaptation of Henry James's creepy ghost story, surprisingly the first time this company has staged it.