It is a tale of two directors at present at English National Opera. We’ve had the company’s season opener — a new production of Gounod’s Faust directed by Broadway darling Des McAnuff — and also a revival of Christopher Alden’s surreal take on Janacek’s The Makropulos Case. One is an accomplished success, the other a monumental failure.

ENO have never been shy of risk-taking. Last season they made headlines with Catalan theatre-company La Fura dels Baus’s Le Grand Macabre and Rupert Goold’s typically enfant-terrible take on Turandot; this season it was the turn of McAnuff to kick things off in provocative style. With a single multi-purpose set from Robert Brill, bland costume design from Paul Tazewell and incidental video projection from Dustin O’Neill, something in McAnuff’s vision just doesn’t translate.

Updating the Faust legend to a wilfully unspecific mishmash of the two world wars, McAnuff casts the doctor as a Jacob Bronowski-esque figure, flirting with the dangerous mysteries of nuclear power. The lack of specificity or intent of the transposition is woefully evident. Staging the entire production within Faust’s science laboratory (with characters trundling endlessly up and down spiral staircases) feels contrived, particularly where the hell scenes are concerned. And where Iain Paterson’s white-suited Mephistopheles fits in is anyone’s guess.

What a shame, then, that such serious vocal talent should be squandered on this mess. Redeeming Gounod’s score from sentimentality and McAnuff’s direction from inanity, Toby Spence proves himself absolutely equal to the vocal challenge of Faust — a role whose vocal demands would have been beyond his capacity just a few years ago.

Poorly matched in Melody Moore’s rather lumpen Marguerite, he is supported by a gloriously honeyed Siebel from Anna Grevelius, and Paterson’s charismatic Mephistopheles.

The Makropulos Case by contrast delivers a masterclass in theatrical coherence. Setting Janacek’s lushly exotic score against Charles Edwards’ monochrome Art Deco set, all Soviet greys and browns, Alden’s production creates a tension resolved in the symbolist gestures and surrealist images of his staging.

Making her role debut as the enigmatic 339-year-old Emilia Marty, Amanda Roocroft captures her mercurial coldness, while also suggesting the vulnerability of a woman who has destroyed, but also been betrayed by, generations of men. Vocally assured, spinning impossible legatos out of Janacek’s disjunct phrases, she leads a strong cast, including Laura Mitchell as Kristina and Peter Hoare as Albert Gregor.

If it’s a generic operatic fix you’re after, Alden’s production more than hits the spot. If it’s a provocative take on the classic Faust legend, you’d be better off waiting for the new year and ENO’s new production of Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust.

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