Move over Baz Lurhmann; the original master of romance has returned . . . Long before audiences were swooning over Moulin Rouge there was Puccini’s La bohème – the sweeping operatic tale of the doomed love of a consumptive seamstress and a poet, played out in the studios, streets and cafes of 19th-century Paris. With a cast of supporting bohemian characters as colourful as Puccini’s orchestration, the result is a romance that is operatic in the truest and most satisfying sense, where heightened emotions can only have complete and logical expression in the equally heightened dramatic medium of song.

La bohème is, in short, the perfect vehicle for the particular strengths and skills of Ellen Kent Opera. Specialising in classic productions of classic operas, this touring company has become something of a watchword for accessibility, proving, paradoxically, that affectionate fidelity can bring as much life to an anachronistic art-form as any amount of avant-garde innovation.

Making creative use of Will Bowen’s flexible classical set (which will appear, chameleon-like, in all five of Ellen Kent’s 2008/9 operas), the production’s opening acts passed in a visual riot of festive revellers and flowing skirts – the perfect foil to the pared-down stillness of the opera’s latter half.

Set against this elegantly articulated framework were the efforts of a cast whose collective dramatic conviction was unfaltering. Irina Vinogradova (pictured) made for a rich-toned and lyrical Mimi, whose rounded sound contrasted so well with the crisp coloratura of Maria Tsonina’s Musetta. Ruslan Zinevych was an endearingly impetuous Rodolofo, but while he proved himself undeniably powerful at the challenging top of his range, somehow failed to bring the same energy to the lower registers, which often tended a little flat.

While achieving a good sense of momentum, the orchestral playing under the direction of Nicolae Dohotaru remained rather inflexible throughout, failing to take advantage of the ebbs and swells of Puccini’s instrumental writing in its matter-of-fact delivery.

The real beauty of this production however was its simplicity, which trusted Puccini’s elegant musico-dramatic structure to do its work without interference. From the playful camaraderie of the artists to the endlessly dovetailing vocal lines of Rodolpho and Mimi, and the fractured tension of the closing scene, the composer says it all, yet too often is shouted down by the ‘vision’ of directors determined to do things differently. What Ellen Kent and her cast captured so successfully was the balance of a work that, for all its emotional outpourings and ubiquitous melodies, is never vulgar or overdone.