Robert Le Diable is an overdue opera revival – but mainly one for buffs

Meyerbeer’s 1831 barnstormer – sometimes called ‘the first grand opera’ – hasn’t been staged at Covent Garden since 1890. So opera buffs who want to tick it off their list should hurry, or wait another 122 years for the next chance.

The rest of the opera-going public might find some things to like too, even if there isn’t quite enough to make it a desperate must-see. Director Laurent Pelly transposes the story – about a dissolute medieval duke who discovers his father is the Devil – to a world that mixes Gothic and 19th-century references: suits of amour with stovepipe hats, that sort of thing. It’s a nice idea but there’s not enough grandeur in the sets, or enough energy in his direction (he presents a jousting tournament as a static scene) to push the long opera through its slow patches.

There are pluses. The infamous ballet of dead nuns – here with cropped haired and wearing shrouds – creates an amusingly macabre frisson. Tenor Bryan Hymel (pictured) sounds glorious in the cruelly high-pitched title role, John Relyea swaggers nicely as the Devil and if Marina Poplavskaya (as the goody-goody Alice) wobbles in some of her phrases, she still gives it welly where it counts.

Last-minute replacement soprano Patrizia Ciofi (Robert’s fiancée, Isabelle) delivers some amazingly high coloratura, too, and Daniel Oren’s conducting is stylish and idiomatic. Not quite operatic heaven but certainly not hell either. Warwick Thompson

In rep until Dec 21 (next perf Wed), Royal Opera House. www.roh.org.uk