WHAT was that about working with children? Halfway through Humperdinck’s fairytale opera a gang of local kids troops onstage dressed in sheets — angels, see — and hangs around for a bit before sloping off again: the naffest piece of staging I’ve collected in a while, and indicative of some confusion about the purpose of Scottish Opera’s mid-scale touring arm.

Yes, it’s a good way of getting parents into the theatre — and of confirming their worst suspicions about opera. For the next year (and the foreseeable future, outside Glasgow and Edinburgh), Scottish Opera on Tour is what remains of publicly funded opera in Scotland; so I thought it would be interesting to see what it was like.

Well, no wonder the marauding troupes of ex-Soviet companies, with their creakily trad classics, are so popular. Despite promising ingredients — talented young singers, a 19-piece orchestra of SO principals and a trusty staging — this is not a very happy evening.

I suppose some still think Hansel and Gretel is a kiddies’ opera. True, Humperdinck loaded it with charm — the charm of sensual ravishment, not twee sentiment. The work seriously confronts real want and hunger (are the imprisoned children blind because that is a symptom of starvation?) and stalks the perilous interstices of food and sex, of parental love and child abuse.

Not here. The staging is unobservant and superficial, with a couple of nice visual touches. There is no hunger or desperation, no terror as the children get lost amid the eerie sounds of Humperdinck’s forest, no comedy, tragedy or witchy vaudeville, too much reliance on the stagecraft of Claire Wild’s perky Gretel and too little help given to the others.

But mainly it’s a musical disappointment. Derek Clark’s relentless conducting deprives the magical score of what enchantment was left after his skilful but misjudged reduction of it. Humperdinck’s myriad miraculous textures are narrowed down to a chuntering wind-band — brilliantly played but utterly unforgiving. A pair each of strings brings relief too rarely, and though the thinned textures reveal all the musical influences, losing the score ’s other qualities is a high price.

Wild’s Gretel stands out — this is a young singer with some future and a good generous open voice that needs nurturing and the last bit of support and focus. Jennifer Johnston worked hard but is too obviously female for Hansel; parents and witch were undersung and played, Rebecca Bottone’s Sandman and Dew Fairy pretty but prim. But none had room to breathe, and the music was pincered, suffocated, beaten into submission. And then those kids. . .