Thematically, Les Noces and Dido do not have much in common. But there are plenty of dance movements throughout Purcell's opera, while Stravinsky's work, though entirely sung, is essentially a ballet, which is probably why Opera North gave this double bill to a director best known as a choreographer.

In the event, Aletta Collins makes her strongest showing in Les Noces, where her 12 dancers - six male, six female - rightly assume the centre of attention. With its mosaic-like presentation of fragments of ancient Russian wedding rituals, Les Noces is a long way from possessing a straightforward narrative. Instead, Collins's choreography summons up images of competition and conflict both within and between the sexes. Much of it is aggressive, providing a perfect match with one of the composer's punchiest scores, and it is assertively executed.

The main problem is that foregrounding the dancers involves pushing back the vocal soloists and chorus, who recede here to a ring-fenced community clutching their scores in their hands. Inevitably, some of the work's brittle brilliance is diluted, even though the performers offer a reliable account under Nicholas Kok.

In contrast, Dido and Aeneas registers as a rather severe experience, what with Collins's restricted movement, Giles Cadle's spare set and Gabrielle Dalton's contemporary costumes. It is not much lightened by Adam Green's stiff and inexpressive Trojan hero, nor by Clarissa Meek's mannered Sorceress, but Amy Freston (as Belinda) and Lucy Crowe both make positive interventions.

In the main role, Susan Bickley brings enough variety of tone and sheer humanity to Dido to make her emotional plight the opera's central experience, charting a sure and certain course from fear of involvement, through anger at her betrayal, and on to the self-mourning of her great final lament.

· In rep until May 24. Box office: 0870 122 4362. Then touring