Il Trovatore, Holland Park, London

It was once famously said that Verdi's Il trovatore required the four best singers in the world. Unfortunately, they were unable to make it to west London this summer, and the four who did must have wondered if being in a dismal production on a very wet day was quite what they had bargained for. In every sense, it was the dampest start to another ambitious season for Opera Holland Park.

So, do you want the bad news or the really bad news? Well, the really bad news was John Lloyd Davies' staging, which, quite apart from the nonsensical update to the Spanish Civil War, appears to have been designed for the slow of thinking. A divided nation gets a divided set, red for the Royalists, white for the Gypsy rebels. At one point, the heroine Leonora tightrope-walks the divide as if to remind us that she's balanced between two suitors. Subtle, eh?

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At another she pops up surreally in the frame of a portrait depicting the Count and his long-lost brother – a broad hint that Manrico (the "troubadour") might not be who he says he is.

And the bad news was that only one of the four protagonists at least aspires to the aforementioned standard of singing. Indeed, Anne Mason's Azucena is among the best sung and most subtly inflected I have heard. Here's an Azucena who excites with the impulse of the words, not the pneumatic overuse of her chest voice. She's classy and touching; her singing comes from somewhere.

Not so, Katarina Jovanovic as Leonora. A singer with no facility for coloratura or "spin" in the upper register shouldn't go near the role. Both of her arias were trying beyond endurance, but it was the cabaletta of the first, "Tacea la notte placida", where her inability to turn corners found her panting to sing one note in five. Her conductor, Brad Cohen, could have spared her blushes and given her more room but chose not to. His poor accommodation of his singers' needs made for some quite shocking ensemble.

Of the men, Stephen Gadd (Conte di Luna) displayed a blade-like clarity but not the reach for those long, shapely legatos. Rafael Rojas certainly possessed the cragginess and swarthy middle voice for hectoring Manrico. He had the top C, too – just – though the blazing pyre of "Di quella pira" had long since been doused.

Season continues to 9 August (0845 230 9769)