A double-bill of Cav and Pag was once a cornerstone of the operatic repertoire. Not any more. Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana (Rustic chivalry) and Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci (The clowns) weren’t written to go together but for more than a century they’ve been inseparable, the tales of adultery, jealousy and murder the archetype of opera at its most overheated.

The archetype eventually became a cliché but by opening its new season with Cav and Pag, English National Opera is signalling that it knows how to make them live again. The director is Richard Jones, whose ability to get under an opera’s skin is second to none; and ENO has commissioned translations from poet Sean O’Brien (Cav) and from Lee Hall, who wrote Billy Eliot and whose verbal surgery on Pag is so drastic (the Anglicised names of the characters are the least radical departure) that his is an “adaptation”, not a translation.

Jones has updated Cav to the Forties. It is still Easter in Sicily, religion is still the seedbed for dangerous emotions, but the action takes place in some kind of community centre, not in the square outside a village church. Ultz’s set acts as a prison, hemming the characters in but although Edward Gardner’s conducting allows the music ample room to hit home, and although Peter Auty and Jane Dutton sing superbly as the central characters, the first night felt a few kilowatts short of maximum power.

After the interval, Leoncavallo’s clowns emerge as seedy celebrity comedians of the Seventies, touring the variety circuit and ending up at Sunderland Empire. Not what Leoncavallo had in mind but it’s a viable transformation, even when individual details seem laboured. Vocally, the cast is inconsistent but Jones’s vision is chillingly realised, and as Tony (ie, Tonio), Christopher Purves delivers a small masterpiece of oily menace. This may not be Pag as we know it but it is a real show.

Until 23 October. Information: 0871 911 0200.