First seen at the Aldeburgh festival last month, Mahogany Opera's production of Britten's church parables has transferred to Southwark Cathedral, where it now forms part of the composer's centenary celebrations at this year's City of London festival.

As with his staging of Curlew River, director Frederic Wake-Walker emphasises the influence of Oriental theatre on last two works in the triptych, The Burning Fiery Furnace and The Prodigal Son, played in reverse order in a single evening. Wake-Walker can be overly eclectic, but the resulting stylisation, controversial in Curlew River, is perhaps more at home here.

The designs for The Prodigal Son suggest India, while imperial Babylon in The Burning Fiery Furnace is evoked through references to eastern Russia, Nepal, Tibet and Javanese shadow puppets. Gestures and body language are derived from Indian dance. In the Burning Fiery Furnace, Nebuchadnezzar and his Astrologer take the other performers on fantastic processions round the cathedral as the building fills with the smell of incense and darkness falls outside.

There's a mesmerising sense of ritual throughout, though Wake-Walker doesn't lose sight of modernity. The homoeroticism of the Tempter's relationship with the Younger Son is breathtakingly done. The Babylonians' great hymn to Merodak suggests a fanaticism that is disquieting in the extreme.

The performances are strong. There's ravishing playing from the Aurora Orchestra chamber ensemble led from the organ by Roger Vignoles. James Gilchrist, in superb voice, makes a wonderfully insidious tempter and a prissy, if dangerous Nebuchadnezzar. Lukas Jacobski (the Father and the Astrologer), unwell on opening night, acted his socks off, while James Arthur sang his music from the pulpit. John McMunn is the outstanding Younger Son: uppity, naive and tragically adrift in a wicked world.

• What have you been to see lately? Tell us about it on Twitter using #GdnReview