Orpheus and Eurydice

The Fringe is known as the place that production values come to die, so when you see an opera company represent the journey to hell and back with not one, but two fully realised set changes—from a shiny floored hospital room with blinking monitors, to a Teletubbies-bright astroturfed garden, and back again—you can be sure they mean business.

About Turn have addressed the dearth of opera at the Fringe in serious, if engagingly bonkers, style. Their lavish-by-festival-standards production condenses Gluck's opera into little over an hour, accompanied by a small chamber orchestra. This 1762 German work is a sensible choice. Gluck was keen on dramatic power over the lavish ballets and displays of vocal virtuosity of the Italian operas of his youth, making his work ripe for a modern setting.

German director Sebastian Ukena's irreverent approach converts the shepherds and shepherdesses of his pastoral original into an enjoyably bonkers chorus of garden gnomes in little pointy hats, scattering neon fake flowers. But there's realism, too, as Orpheus's backward glance is given careful psychological reasoning by Eurydice's attacks on his resolve. Counter-tenor Magid El Bushra's truthful performance emphasises Orpheus's petulance and delicacy, while the pared-down chorus offers a richly blended living surround sound as well as plenty of colour.

This is an Orpheus who's been dragged out of his underworld (even if he can't bring Eurydice with him) into a lively, fun performance that's heavenly for opera fans and is anything but the living hell that opera sceptics might suspect. Go: you won't look back.