Don’t expect a respite from the frosty temperatures at the superb production of John Gabriel Borkman being presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. From the mounds of snow dotting the bleak set to its chilly emotional climate, Ibsen’s 19th century classic doesn’t exactly provide much in the way of warmth.

What it does possess, thanks to the Bernie Madoff scandal, is a newfound immediacy. The title character, played with haughty grandeur by Alan Rickman, is a financier who went to prison for five years for embezzling his investors’ money. Now he lives in disgrace and rarely ventures from the upper floor of his house, with his relationships with his resentful wife Gunhild (Fiona Shaw) and grown son Erhart (Marty Rea) in tatters.

The arrival of his wife’s twin sister Ella (Lindsay Duncan, Rickman’s co-star in both Les Liaisons Dangereuse and Private Lives) creates even more tension in the troubled household. It seems that Ella, who was John’s lover before he married her sister, wants her nephew to come live with her. Gunhild, convinced that only he is only capable of restoring honor to the family name, bitterly resents the request.

The resulting collision among these figures forms the heart of the drama, which memorably ends in a climactic scene taking place in the midst of a fierce blizzard that is evocatively evoked in this masterful staging by James Macdonald that was imported from Dublin’s Abbey Theatre.

While the play itself has its definite longeurs, it is rendered here with shattering results thanks to the brilliant performances by the three leads. Rickman, using his sonorous voice to great effect, subtly conveys the stubborn pride of a man who refuses to admit he did anything wrong. His performance contrasts beautifully with those Shaw, constantly teetering on the edge of hysteria as the wronged wife, and Duncan, deeply moving as the self-assured Ella who is harboring a dark secret.

Once again, the invaluable Brooklyn Academy of Music is to be commended for bringing to these shores yet another superb foreign production that would otherwise require an overseas flight to experience. One can hardly wait for the upcoming King Lear starring Derek Jacobi that is being imported from London’s Donmar Warehouse.

Brooklyn Academy of Music, 651 Fulton Street, Brooklyn. 718-636-4100. www.BAM.org.