Maybe it was the prospect of four solid hours in the company of St Francis of Assisi. Maybe, late in the Prom season, audiences had succumbed to Messiaen centenary fatigue. In the vast Albert Hall we seemed very few. But Netherlands Opera's vibrant and gripping concert performance of the French composer's single, epic, amazing opera should ring in our ears for ever.

True enough, some patience was required over the drier stretches of the vocal lines or the lengthier theological discussions. But Messiaen's mosaic fresco structure soon became hypnotic, and the sounds resonated through the domed space with a splendour that felt not of this Earth. Weird gurglings from winds and brass; cooing turtle-dove flutes; a humming chorus overlaid with glockenspiel; slashing piccolos; secret glints of three ondes martenot: every shining, adventurous texture gave evidence of Messiaen's regenerated vocabulary in this most personal and ambitious work of his old age. The hard-working conductor Ingo Metzmacher and the Hague Philharmonic luxuriated in the composer's magic garden.

At first glance Francis and his white-shirted band of brothers seemed to serve as the magic garden's brick wall. Where the orchestra glittered, they chanted. But as the frescos advanced and perspectives adjusted, you soon felt the lively character of Metzmacher's cast, fresh from staged performances in Amsterdam. As he journeyed towards death and paradise, Rod Gilfry's St Francis was no holy wimp: he sang with real fibre, always intense, alight with conviction. Hubert Delamboye's Leper jollied up his big scene no end with his cantankerous vigour; so did Donald Kaasch's Elias, the monk displeased at being disturbed, even by an angel's knock.

The sole woman soloist, Heidi Grant Murphy, undertook angelic duties with gleaming, simple beauty; she was clearly audible even from her position by the hall's organ console. Let's praise the chorus too, who never tired of waiting patiently, shouting “François”, or bursting with a lovely crescendo.

Did we miss much by not seeing it staged? I don't think so. We had benches, a cross: quite enough props. Everything vital was in the music: birds, devotion, humility, radiance, and above all, the joy of wonder.

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