THE Royal Opera continues its jubilee retrospective of major German works with an impressive revival of Lohengrin. First staged 20 years ago, when it won the Olivier Award, Slijah Moshinsky's production remains a masterly lesson in the power of dramatic conviction over convention. The atmosphere of medieval Brabant is evoked by John Napier's sumptuous costumes on a stage virtually bare except for three outsize religious reliquaries, and the absence of customary theatrical clutter enables the chorus to move freely in the big crowd scenes while throwing the emotional relationships of the principals into high relief.

These are led by Gosta Winbergh as a stern and sonorous Lohengrin with Karita Mattila as a clear, almost schoolgirlish Elsa, readily vulnerable to temptation. There is surprise casting in Gwyneth Jones and Sergei Leiferkus as Ortrud and Telramund, but the Welsh soprano tackles this mezzo role with a commitment that overrides the vibrato of her singing with its study of total malevolence. Leiferkus makes Telramund a desperate, tortured figure, at times even moving in his wretchedness, and there are fine performances from Anthony Michaels Moore and Rene Pape as the herald and the king.