Stirring fall of Troy

Serene Carthage was, quite properly, radically different from warring Troy. In scale and intensity, Part II of Berlioz's epic retelling of Virgil is the torso, limbs and heart of The Trojans, with Part I - seen in January - the burnished, bloodied head.

By choosing different designers for each section, united under the direction of Richard Jones, the Coliseum took a risk. Only next year, when the work is seen in its entirety in a single evening, will it be clear whether the decision was mad or inspired.

Whereas Part I's designer Stewart Laing opted for specific, if gimmicky, visual reference - the Kennedys, contemporary terrorism - Part II is more vague and whimsically abstract. John Macfarlane, whose taste for the playful worked memorably well in the Welsh National Opera's Queen of Spades, got slightly carried away here, like the girl who can't decide which frock to wear for dinner so brings the lot and changes for each course.

Thus, an agreeable mix of geometry and Didoesque fresco at the start is long forgotten by the final image, three hours later, of a utopian Canary Wharf cum new Rome. I swear we also saw punk satyrs and naiads with painted nipples writhing in a grotesque kind of sub-aquatic aerobic minus the water but I could be making this up. There's a lot of ballet in The Trojans and no one ever knows quite what to do with it. The Royal Hunt and Storm should not, if possible, provoke giggles.

Musically, however, this was a formidable evening in which the company was star. Paul Daniel, conducting, whipped up a magnificent frenzy of high drama, milking Berlioz's revolutionary orchestration for all its worth, with an orchestra on shining form. The Trojan March, as it returns in all its guises, prompted brass playing of heart and elegance. A chorus of wholesome, corn-fed Carthaginians produced the evening's most exciting sounds.

Susan Parry, singing her first Dido, showed impressive dramatic colour in a performance that will grow. Her abandonment by the wretched Aeneas was properly terrifying. Their famous night of love duet - with lovers apparently suspended in a kitsch starburst - if not yet ecstatic still required a handkerchief. John Daszak struggled occasionally but was always musically alert. His real problem was that, sartorially speaking, cargo trousers do lack a certain heroic je ne sais quoi.

Anne Marie Gibbons, a spirited Anna, deputised convincingly. Colin Lee's Iopas and Christopher Saunders's Hylas stood out. Like the model Carthage - a foretaste of Albert Speer - in Act I, this intelligent production is a bit of an episodic kit, but Berlioz always comes to his own rescue with enthralling music.

Until 7 June. Box office: 020 7632 8300.

The Trojans Part 2: The Trojans At Carthage