Magic is in the music

The chief attraction of this revival of Lohengrin was always going to be the cast. Elijah Moshinsky's staging, with sets by John Napier probably looked quite avant garde when new in 1977.

Now the empty box into which rather rickety symbolic totems are pulled has a workaday efficiency but a rather low quotient of romance - either medieval or courtly - on which Wagner's 1850 opera depends.

The entry of the celebrated Swan should be a visual highlight but instead was a spectacular non-event. Limited though my experience of knights arriving by swan-boat is, I am convinced that coming up through the floor is not the best way.

None of this much mattered since musically this was a high-calibre performance.

Mark Elder, by any reckoning a world-class Wagnerian, conducted a clear-sighted, intense performance which had time to breathe and never dragged (how often can we say that of Lohengrin?). The Royal Opera orchestra, together with off- and on-stage trumpets and organ, excelled.

The outstanding performance of the evening was that of Waltraud Meier as the vicious dominatrix Ortrud, single-handedly to blame for the entire muddle of sex, swords, sorcery (and swans) on which the fantastical plot turns. The role ideally suits Meier. Her stage presence is fiery, her voice as forceful and thrilling as it is subtle. In the first act she does little except look superb and roll her eyes, yet she holds the stage. By Act II, her big moment, we are gripped.

As Elsa of Brabant, Wagner's saintly, dippy heroine, Melanie Diener had ardour and radiance,` and certainly looked appalled when she realised, too late, she should never have got mixed up with a magical knight who won't tell her his name (I'm Mrs Who? she wonders in two of her arias).

The American tenor Robert Dean Smith cut a somewhat anxious, humpty-dumpty figure as Lohengrin. Vocally, his middle range sounded strained but he negotiated the relentless high notes skilfully and saved just enough vim for his final oration.

Rene Pape's resonant Heinrich I looked especially impressive in a carapace of gold. Sergei Leiferkus's Telramund was coldly effective if reedy sounding.

The hard-working Royal Opera chorus made the most of the Bridal Chorus which follows the so-called Wedding March. It's a wonder anyone ever chooses to walk down the aisle to a piece written for so disastrous and bloody a marriage.

In rep until 24 June. Box office: 020 7304 4000.

Lohengrin