Live / The Enchantress The Dome, Brighton

A decade on from perestroika, the Brighton Festival has chosen Russia as its theme - always a handy one for music. A few years back the focus might have been the newly independent republics whose musical wares were sampled by the West in a bout of liberalfervour, then forgotten. This year, however, Brighton has chosen a safe option. Last Friday's orchestral concert at the Dome clung firmly to the Romantic period with Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique" Symphony in its second half. Prokofiev's patriotic cantata Alexander Nevsky gave a nod to the centenary of cinema, and was paired with the Second Violin Concerto. Even so, none of these works could be described as offbeat.

The Russian slant was among the performers, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra choosing Yakov Kreizberg as its conductor. Though currently active in Europe and America, he's St Petersburg born and a pupil of the legendary conducting teacher Ilya Musin. In addition, the soloist was Maxim Vengerov, a Russian violinist of impeccable artistry whose command of style ranged from heady lyricism in the concerto's slow movement to wild Spanish dance in its finale. The orchestra backed him with some fine playing, both from principals and in its general sense of ensemble, though for Jonathan Grieves-Smith and the Brighton Festival Chorus in Alexander Nevsky, they sounded a touch shaky. In the "Pathetique", Kreizberg's elegant podium manners were nice to watch, but his reading was less inspired than solid.

Still, you can't go wrong with Tchaikovsky; that is, not unless you choose to stage the British premiere of his long-lost opera The Enchantress. These days not many of us get the chance to hear a Tchaikovsky premiere, let alone perform in one at the Dome, which is just what New Sussex Opera have done, giving the festival its Russian imprint with a vengeance. Full marks to them and their conductor David Angus for deepening our knowledge of 19th-century music. It's just that the piece in question, though one of the composer's own favourites and contemporary with the Manfred Symphony, is surely among his weakest works.

The problem starts with the libretto, a patchwork of melodrama and unmotivated action if ever there was one, but prized by Tchaikovsky for its demonstration of the power of love. The Carmen-like Kuma, powerfully sung by soprano Virginia Kerr, gains the admiration of Prince Nikita (Andrew Slater) and Prince Yuri, his son (Doyle Wilcox), but also the jealousy of their wife and mother, Princess Yevpraxia (Philippa Dames-Longworth). Passions are further inflamed when Kuma prefers the son to the father. With a touch of poison to help the plot along, the result is a pile of on-stage bodies at the end of Act 4, and tragi-comedy only in an unfortunate sense that was confirmed by John Lloyd Davies's colourful if angular production.

Angus drew some excellent sounds from the pit on Saturday, making the most of some fairly routine theatre music: just good enough for revival and recording, but not for the repertoire.

NICHOLAS WILLIAMS