THE road to bad art is paved with good intentions. I am sure that buckets of good intentions went into this “community opera for Hackney”, not to mention many thousands of pounds from the Arts Council, the Learning and Skills Council, the Learning Trust, the Performing Right Society and even the European Union Social Fund.

And the omens seemed promising. After all, community opera — the genre that gives hundreds of ordinary people a taste of working with music and theatre professionals — has scored some notable hits in its short history, not least at the Hackney Empire.

On London Fields, however, is a lamentable dud. Act I has mitigating moments: the odd humorous line, a couple of tuneful choruses. Act II, though, is not only tedious but incomprehensible. One felt so sorry for the vast cast of local people who executed Martin Lloyd-Evans’s crowd-control staging with sincerity, and for the handful of professional principals — notably the two female leads, Sally Burgess and Alison Buchanan.

Another hero on the night was the conductor Jonathan Gill, who kept a cool head on the numerous occasions when the chorus became dangerously unhinged from his assorted instrumental forces — local brass band up in the balcony, youth jazz band, a few players from the Academy of StMartin-in-the-Fields, plus several smaller groups.

But the plaudits end there.

Alasdair Middleton’s libretto — a half-baked mishmash about a 17th-century Hackney woman who has visions and stirs up the populace, first against the Royalists and then against the Puritans — ran out of steam well before the interval. And although Matthew King’s music had some attractive features — a strong jazzy big-band feel and a way of building large ensembles by piling up simple choral riffs — it petered out into what may qualify as the lamest operatic finale in history.

It seemed ridiculous, too, to bring together so many diverse ensembles and then make such limited interplay of their contrasting styles and timbres.

The whole evening reeked of condescension and pretension. Amateur choirs and children can, and do, sing with a hundred times more gusto, excitement and musicality than they did here (and most don’t get a penny of public funding). To present what we saw on Friday to a paying public just because it showcases people from a “poor borough”, or people who are still learning English, was frankly condescending.

And to soak up dollops of subsidy, claiming that this sort of show “breaks down elitist barriers”, is not only pretentious but deluded. Its perpetrators, the Hackney Music Development Trust, and their backers need to rethink from top to bottom.