‘The Lighthouse’ makes an oddly lax ghost story

There is a masterful use of instrumental texture and color, drawn from a chamber ensemble of only a dozen players, as well as an inclination for expressive density — an attempt to pack many thoughts and feelings into a tight space (the piece runs just 70 minutes).

In the absence of much overt dramatic action, it’s left to the performers and to Davies’ skittery, atomized score to create an effect — and there’s a constant danger that the piece will become simply a haunted-house installation.

The Opera Parallèle production, conducted by artistic director Nicole Paiement and staged by director Brian Staufenbiel, walked that line with moderate but not complete success.

Paiement shaped the performance with cut-glass precision, making room for both solo excursions and taut ensemble playing from the orchestra.

In the hands of four billed “fabric dancers,” these elaborate schmattes did multiple duty — literally as sea, fog and nocturnal murk, and metaphorically as the psychological demons of the three keepers.

The complicated sexual history of Sandy (tenor Thomas Glenn, in a soulful, sweet-toned performance) gets a sentimental romantic ballad, while the sanctimonious Arthur (David Cushing, whose resplendently resonant bass offered its own kind of foghorn sonority) launches into a revival march full of religious anguish and hypocrisy.