Lucia Di Lammermoor, Theatre Royal, Glasgow

Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor is a vehicle for great singers. But you can get away with less if you let the score ring brightly, and refrain from over-producing. This was what happened in Glasgow in John Doyle's new production for Scottish Opera.

It came over as a moving, storming success. People wept, and there were tempests of rapture at the final curtain call. It was partly due to the conducting of Julian Smith. Somehow, he gave the orchestra free rein without ever drowning the singers. Everything had swing and thrust, even the slow numbers, which trembled with nervous energy. The players were at times tentative, but they soon got the hang of it. It was an exemplary achievement.

But above all, you had to admire the compromise adopted by Doyle and his designer, Liz Ascroft. I was not aware of any particular "concept" , yet the image was far from traditional. The chorus wore overcoats and felt hats, and the all-purpose set pictured an arrangement of steps and pillars against a stormy sky. The dominant colours were black and charcoal, though Lucia herself was allowed a scarlet dress, and, shockingly, her white wedding attire was smeared and blotched with great bloodstains in the madness scene.

There were intelligent traits. In intimate scenes, there was always a character or two hiding behind a pillar, as though society were listening to the characters' personal dramas. From time to time shadowy figures straight out of some folktale or ballad processed across the stage, bearing candles. The general atmosphere was bleak and cold, like a Highland landscape - though the Lammermoor hills are, of course, in the Borders, not the Highlands.

At first it almost seemed as though we were getting top singers after all; the opening scene in the forest was dominated by the baritone Enrico, sung superbly by Andrew Schroeder. He acted with his voice, lavishly projecting the sounds and making gesture redundant. Everything seemed set for a night to remember.

But with the next scene - Lucia at the fountain, visited by Edgardo - limitations started to show. Sally Silver (Lucia) is a competent artist; unfortunately, she never makes a beautiful sound, and was incapable of any poetry in her opening "Regnava Nel Silenzio". So many different moods of coloratura are called for in this part: tenderness in her farewell to Edgardo; brilliance in her duet with Enrico; anger and despair in the sextet at the end of Act II; poignancy in the mad scene. Yet Silver often sounded as though she were singing a tour de force. She threw herself into the acting, however, stumbling and twitching in the mad scene and singing with an ingénue voice that reduced "Alfin Son Tua" to an infant's chirp.

Her Edgardo, the Turkish singer Bülent Bezdüz, has the looks of a screen idol, but he is an approximate artist. He has to cap the madness scene with a long passage containing the aria "Tu Che a Dio Spiegasti", but Bezdüzneeded more than bravado to carry it off, especially as his voice - a handsome tenor - was by now fragile.

The comprimario parts were well covered, though perhaps Nicholas Ransley as Normanno was a bit too gloatingly cynical. Raimondo (Alan Fairs) was a chaplain (actually, a minister of the Church of Scotland) with command and dignity; the mezzo Sarah Pring was a sonorous Alisa. Adriano Graziani, as Arturo, was a high and quite sexless tenor, a very unusual voice. The chorus, freelancers since Scottish Opera has shed its permanent chorus, sang and moved with gusto.

To 31 May (0870 060 6647), then touring to 26 June (www.scottishopera.org.uk)