Consumption – tuberculosis – has many nicknames. “White death” is the most chilling, a reference to the pallor that afflicts its victims. An unforgettable aspect of Scottish Opera’s La traviata, directed by David McVicar and designed by Tanya McCallin, is its use of monochrome. White flowers or muslin gown or bed sheets or Violetta’s ever more chalky complexion. Black satin drapes dividing the stage this way or that, at the end falling ominously across the windows, indicative of death. Splashes of colour, notably crimson or pink, intensify the feverish impact.

First seen in 2008 and since performed in Barcelona, Madrid, Geneva and at Welsh National Opera, this spectacular Tissot-Manet-inspired production is the main offering in Scottish Opera’s autumn season. Revived by Marie Lambert and conducted by David Parry, it began hesitantly, with the Act 1 party scene a little haphazard and the fire of love between Violetta and Alfredo needing rather more kindling. Then all changed.

The central act – when the couple have set up house in the country – found new vigour, thanks to the striking presence of British baritone Stephen Gadd as Germont, Alfredo’s father. His long exchange with Violetta, as he pleads with her to abandon his son, had a tugging, restless agony, also conjuring some of the best singing from Gulnara Shafigullina, the Russian soprano making her Scottish Opera debut.

A sympathetic stage presence, she was often at odds with Parry and the orchestra, her wide vibrato leading to intonation problems, perhaps first-night nerves. Gadd and the Dutch tenor Peter Gijsbertsen as Alfredo were electrifying in the father-son scene that follows. Gadd, singing beautifully and richly in crisp Italian, ran the gamut of emotions, always carefully gradated: embarrassment, shame, fury, pity.

Gijsbertsen, light-toned and almost boyish, met Gadd’s dramatic example head on, barely containing his despair and frustration, physically abandoned, vocally controlled. The last act worked its painful magic, trombones and cimbasso tolling their knell: two short, one long beat. Verdi wanted no onstage coughs, even at the end. The illness should be enmeshed in the fractured waltzes and broken phrasing of the music itself. Shafigullina obliged with only a hint of a choke. See La traviata in Aberdeen, Inverness or Edinburgh.

Verdi knew what he wanted for Les Vêpres siciliennes (1855), his first work for the Paris opera, written two years after La traviata. He asked his librettist for a “grandiose, impassioned, original subject, calling for an impressive, overwhelming production”. French grand opera was a monumental affair, with five acts, large chorus, special effects – preferably involving fire – and a ballet. This one ends with a massacre.

Making enormous demands on the principal singers, and with one of those plots that appears straightforward until the curtain rises, Les Vêpres is a collector’s item, worth catching for that reason alone. The Royal Opera’s first production (yes it’s that rare), gorgeously and confusingly directed by Stefan Herheim and new in 2013, has been efficiently revived by Daniel Dooner. The Italian conductor Maurizio Benini keeps the pace brisk and sure-footed, even through the longueurs. Chorus and orchestra perform well enough to convince you, very nearly, that this rousing music is Verdi at his best.

The same formidable male stars are back: American tenor Bryan Hymel radiant and scintillating, only momentarily tiring, as Henri; German baritone Michael Volle magnificent as Montfort; and Uruguayan bass-baritone Erwin Schrott gravelly and beguiling as Jean Procida, singing French as if it were, well, another language. The Swedish soprano Malin Byström, who plays Salome later in the ROH season, takes the role of Hélène, her voice dark in timbre but capable of silvery brilliance too.

The opera is set in medieval Sicily, though a knowledge of the history of that period may not help. Herheim’s production takes place in an opulent recreation of the Paris opera (sets by Philipp Fürhofer) at the time of the work’s premiere. A programme note explains that Herheim has translated the story “into an existential struggle between artists and the people who want to use and abuse art, making art itself the country over which they are fighting”. Try unravelling that. It’s long and often static. It’s the worst of opera but the best too, with fantastic singing and playing and spectacle. Despite all kinds of reservations, I’ve a hankering to go again.

As music director of the Royal Opera from 1987 to 2002, Bernard Haitink conducted almost no Italian opera. The music of Verdi, particularly Don Carlos, was an exception. Despite that long ROH association, and before that his years as music director of Glyndebourne, Haitink’s prime reputation now is as one of the all-time symphonic greats. With minimal gesture and even less fuss, he gets the most out of an orchestra. It’s impossible to say how: left hand rarely raised above elbow level, baton hand merely (merely?) beating the time.

It may look mechanical. The results tell you otherwise. On Sunday (repeated Thursday), the London Symphony Orchestra played Brahms’s Symphony No 2 in D with utmost clarity, musical components fitting one to another with perfect ease and delicacy. You could hear precisely how the work was assembled, how one melodic or harmonic idea related to another, passed between strings and woodwind, timpani or brass. Transparent isn’t a word usually applied to Brahms. It should be. Haitink showed the way.

This terrific concert also included German violinist Veronika Eberle, a refreshing, dazzlingly nimble soloist in Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto. A smaller ensemble of LSO players gave an impeccable performance of Thomas Adès’s absorbing and melancholy Three Studies from Couperin (2006). Haitink has also conducted this music several times with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Impressive, at 88, to have a 21st-century work as your calling card.

Star ratings (out of 5)
La traviata ★★★
Les Vêpres siciliennes ★★★★
LSO/Haitink ★★★★★

• La traviata is in rep at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow, until 2 December, and tours to Aberdeen, Inverness and Edinburgh
• Les Vêpres siciliennes is in rep at the Royal Opera House, London, until 4 November