Puccini's Suor Angelica and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci were never intended for performance as a double bill, and given the enmity that existed between the two composers, it seems ironic that they should be bracketed together. Yet the works are to some extent complementary. Puccini's opera inveighs against a social system that immures supposedly fallen women in convents. Pagliacci, meanwhile, depicts the members of an itinerant theatre company, whose lives on the open road are offset by their claustrophobic erotic vicissitudes backstage.

The coupling's potential force is vitiated by Opera Holland Park's decision to entrust the operas to two different directors. Matt Lane's staging of Suor Angelica is nothing short of confused. It is prefaced with an interminable dumb show to delineate the relationships between the characters. Angelica's Aunt, who invades the convent's precincts to continue her persecution of her niece, becomes an art-nouveau siren, which misfires since her hypocrisy is religious rather than sexual. At the end, Lane suggests that Angelica's vision of the Virgin Mary is mere fantasy, which wrecks Puccini's point that divine intervention constitutes an overturning of moral convention.

Jamie Hayes's staging of Pagliacci, however, is a thing of wonder. Using film references, Hayes explores the opera's overlapping layers of reality and illusion. He kicks off in Cinema Paradiso-style with the villagers watching The Third Man. Nedda contemplates adultery while viewing Brief Encounter, and prepares to actually abscond with Silvio, a James Dean lookalike. The play the actors perform is a gangster drama that escalates into horror when Canio, finally losing his rag, starts gunning people down in earnest.

The musical performances, both conducted by Nicoletta Conti, mirror the dramatic inequalities. Suor Angelica is terribly sluggish, and with the exception of Catherine Mikic in the title role, the singing is unremarkable. Pagliacci, however, seethes with vitality, while the cast, especially Loredana Arcuri's sluttish Nedda, is outstanding. Recommended - but take your seats after the interval.

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