Leoncavallo and Mascagni always end up headlining together for the simple reason that their masterpieces are both short (and both in Italian). But in this new production Richard Jones has striven to demonstrate — successfully — that Pagliacci and Cavalleria rusticana have a little more in common. Both concern love triangles — or love polygons of some nature, anyway. Both end badly. One is an ironic take on the other. And both epitomise a style which tackles “the realistic subject matter and emotional temperament” (“versimo” [sic.], according to one programme howler).

Cavalleria rusticana (plainly not Sicilian Revenge, as billed here) opens and remains in what looks suspiciously like a back-stage room at the Coliseum. Turiddu (Peter Auty) tries to recapture his former love, Lola (Fiona Murphy). They fumble around, and lie down behind some stacked chairs. Ooh, err . . . quick crescendo.

Mascagni is Bernstein for late-Risorgimento Italy (we haven’t invented soundtrack yet; but here’s the next best thing!). The disproportionate fame of the Easter Hymn reflects unfairly on the whole, but only a little. Cavalleria rusticana is back-to-back tunes, encouraging the worst manifestations of Classicfm Tourette’s among the punters.

The result is just not as weighty as it imagines, and everyone seemed to know it. The abandoned Santuzza's (Jane Dutton) physical anguish wasn’t equal to her vocals. The cuckolded Alfio (Roland Wood) seemed little more than cheesed off, even when stabbing a door. Quite seriously, the most affecting character was Turiddu’s mentally ill brother (the actor, Robert Ewen, actually has cerebral palsy).

Pagliacci (or The Comedians) is competing with In Bruges for Funniest Bloodbath 2008 (yep, they all die: sorry). It is also a play — apologies — on theatricality itself. While proclaiming that “life and the theatre are both completely different” the characters proceed to work real-life (theirs) into their own fictions (their show) before our eyes (our show). And this time the set actually is the theatre: two theatres, even — eventually we end up with one audience looking directly at the other.

Lee Hall’s Anglicised translation is typical of ENO at its gleeful, (self-)referential best. Dead ringers for The Producers — complete with opening Opening Night chorus and Max Bialystock’s criminal hairdo — entertainers Kenny (Geraint Dodd) and Tony (Christopher Purves) are about to open their new sex farce when Tony declares his love for Kenny’s wife, Nelly (Mary Plazas). Rebuffed and mocked as a “second-rate fall guy”, he embarks on a course of lethal retaliation.

It’s very well sung but, if anything, Pagliacci is rather short on tunes. And while I have no problem with opera in English, if you’re going to wait patiently for the “ridi Pagliaccio” then “Laugh, Mr Paxo!” just ain’t the same. There are ways and ways, surely.

Coliseum, until October 23. Tickets: £15-£84, 0871 911 0200 (www.eno.org).