OPERA / The Magic Flute - ENO, London Coliseum

Silly story? It all hangs together in Nicholas Hytner's production, revived on Wednesday by John Abulafia. People just do turn up and give you boxes of bells, or drop their guns when you play them music. The trials by fire and water don't come off - all that earnest preparation for half a minute walking on a tray of hot coals and a quick Jacuzzi in the basement - but then they hardly ever do. Rationality's a facade, anyway, or at most a means; people here are at their best when they follow their wholehearted desires.

Sarastro knows this, and it makes him a quick, good-hearted fellow who chuckles, instead of a solemn old bore - an inspired creation, giving the show a freshness and wonder on a par with the Peter Sellars staging, which is saying something. Yet reflect on it, and you have also seen nobility put down by commoners, Pamina and Tamino accepted for their human qualities and in spite of their royal origins, and a consistent show of strength by the women.

That is reflected vocally, from the sumptuous 'Ladies' of Janice Watson, Susan Bickley and Therese Feighan, to Gillian Webster's uncommonly magnificent Pamina, hard and accurate in attack, more dynamic than warm, the brightest sound of the night. Mary Hegarty's no-nonsense, chain-smoking Papagena has Papageno's number at first sight. Newcomer among the men is Paul Nilon's very English Tamino, tight at the top, expansive in phrasing and sometimes tremulous, looking perpetually anxious but braving it out. Nicholas Kraemer conducts with a pacy lightness of touch; the orchestral strings shun vibrato.

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