L'Etoile, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London

To whom the first accolades, in an evening of bouquets? First, surely, to Emmanuel Chabrier, whose opéra bouffe, L'Etoile ("The Lucky Star", 1877), to a libretto by the apocryphal-sounding duo of Eugène Leterrier and Albert Vanloo, is a smash hit of a comic show to rival Offenbach at his best. Second, to Jeremy Sams's slick, canny translation, which served Phyllida Lloyd's Opera North staging ideally, and fitted this new Guildhall staging like a glove. Third, to Jemma Snell's stage-management team, who slotted all the spherical paraphernalia (the humour hinges on astral projection) into place with nary a hitch.

For in truth, this consistent, well-plotted show is exactly what a student production should be: the comedy never creaked; the acting quality, slick movement and tightly rehearsed gags never drooped; so clear was their delivery, a five-year-old would have got the gist. The director Thomas de Mallet Burgess, movement director Lynne Hockney, and lighting supremo Giuseppe Di Iorio have mapped out this natty palaver in every unified detail. The timing was impeccable: even the first night came in – apt for a clock-centred comedy – spot on time. Burgess has rehearsed his young performers to perfection. The whole gloriously daft exercise exposed the Guildhall as a veritable seedbed of excellence.

Dramatically, anyway. Not for nothing is it the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Central to L'Etoile is Lazuli, the cheerful street-hawker embroiled in royal shenanigans, whose astral chart tallies perilously with that of the cheerfully disreputable King Ouf (Nicholas Smith) and his deferential astrologer Siroco (Freddie Tong). The spirited, Scottish-accented Icelandic mezzo, Gudrun Olafsdottir, rivalled, unbelievably, Pamela Helen Stephen's unmatchable Opera North performance. She hasn't the same quality of voice (some of her gutsy singing might be better suited to a musical). But as a punchy presence, rocketing out over the footlights, she is terrific.

But that's the calibre of Burgess's direction. Not a weak link, and every well-drilled extra loaded with dramatic savvy. Of the visiting foursome from a neighbouring kingdom, Mark Cunningham's Welsh know-it-all, Porc-Epic, was a comic gem; William Townend's shambolic wooing of Herisson's wife in the beauty parlour was a stylish hoot; the two girls, Samyka Waked as the cock-pecked wife and Kate Royal as the weddable Princess who falls for the pauper, offered two of the evening's better (though by no means fully fledged) voices. Smith's Ouf has some long-term operatic potential; his alternate, Benjamin Hulett, sports the better lyric tenor.

L'Etoile teeters from hit to hit, and is musically so much more interesting than Sullivan. Clive Timms's orchestra had its moments and its off-moments: strings, oboes and clarinets could all be slicker. Prize to the two flutes, bassoon, and a fine cello solo. If you think Chabrier means España, get out and see this.

Last performance tonight (020-7638 8891; www.gsmd.ac.uk)