A Dog's Heart **** TNT

There’s been a lot of fuss in the media recently about the wisdom of letting a theatre director loose on opera, but Complicite co-founder Simon McBurney does a stunning job of staging this new adaptation of Bulgakov’s subversive satire which was written in 1925 but remained unpublished in his native Russia until 1987.

You’re unlikely to remember much of Raskatov’s varied, disjointed music after a single hearing and in reality it proves subservient to the inventive visual images McBurney creates to tell the story of a starving, stray mongrel, Sharik, who is seduced by a tasty sausage offered by the privileged Professor Preobrazhensky, nursed back to health and then (in an operation graphically shown in silhouette) has his pituitary gland and testicles replaced with those of a human.

Like Frankenstein’s monster, however, the result of this manmade experiment turns out to be far from what the scientist anticipated - the mutt morphs into a swearing, spitting, sexually-obsessed, balalaika-playing lout, Sharikov, with all the uncouth characteristics of the proletarian donor.

This is, of course, a critique of communism and Soviet social engineering, but despite a serious message and a darkening atmosphere, the production is also endlessly playful. Sharik is a rangy, emaciated puppet (inspired by Giacometti, created by Blind Summit and doubly voiced by countertenor Andrew Watts and a soprano growling through a megaphone).

Sharikov’s relentless pursuit of a cat ends in a deluge of water and McBurney’s clever use of video projection adds layers of association, threat and subtlety to an unconventional UK premiere which deserves to attract both open-minded opera aficionados and those new to the art form.

English National Opera at the London Coliseum St Martin’s Lane, WC2N 4ES (Charing Cross tube) 0871 911 0200 eno.org £11 - £52 Until 4th December