Great singing, great music-making, shame about the opera.

Carl Maria von Weber's Euryanthe is a German medieval fable performed infrequently and now, for the first time, at Glyndebourne.

Its real claim to fame is that it shattered the opera form by being the first to be totally sung through.

Weber eschewed dialogue and recitative to make every word sung and made the music continuous. In that sense, he foreshadowed Verdi and Puccini.

But Euryanthe did not foreshadow lightness. This is a pretty dour piece which, although it has a happy ending, takes a very long time to get there.

The tale of love and trust betrayed or, more simply, the usual battle between good and evil, isn't helped by Richard Jones' production.

It is spikily done and those spikes are everywhere. Every forest tree has spiky branches, tusks dominate, spikes appear from walls and even the swords look more like spikes than battle axes.

Maybe Jones' mother was frightened by an elephant or rhino but this is a pretty surreal production, totally timeless and with hardly a laugh in it.

Nevertheless, having said that, the singing was glorious. Glyndebourne chorus was beautifully muscular and smooth. It moved properly and sang out clearly and skilfully with bags of colour in the sound, if not in the rather drab costumes.

And a new star emerged into the Glyndebourne firmament. She is American soprano Lauren Flanigan, in action, more mezzo than soprano.

She plays the evil Eglantine and has the voice of a future Isolde or any other Wagner role. It is nicely brassy, highly coloured and forceful.

She lit up the whole stage when she was on it, upstaging even the lead, soprano Anne Schwanewilms, who is herself no slouch and plays the title role with emotion, aplomb and real passion.

It is her plight of the innocent betrayed that is the spur for this utterly-Gothic tale.

The male leads and rivals for Euryanthe's hand are also excellent value for money. Tenor John Daszak is on top form, as is understudy Stephen Gadd standing in on opening night because of illness.

In the pit, Mark Elder and the Orchestra Of The Age Of Enlightenment give what gusto the opera allows and, indeed, the music is pretty good.

Elder and company are awesome in the big arias and keep things ticking over throughout but I doubt Euryanthe is every musician's thing.

The audience was certainly loud in its applause but I am not too sure I will be rushing back to see this work again.

Tickets: 01273 813813.