Whisper it not near Stratford-upon-Avon, but I've always considered Verdi's final opera to be a tauter and tenser tragedy than Shakespeare's original. And Welsh National Opera's new production - superbly sung and played, exuberantly conducted and at least competently staged - holds you enthralled from the tumultuous opening storm to the dying Otello's pathetic attempt to embrace his dead Desdemona.

True, Paul Curran's production won't win prizes for innovation. Costumes and sets (Paul Edwards's warm red Mediterranean rocks and walls) are traditional - the highlight being the arrival of Roger Cresswell's vast gold sculpture of the Lion of Venice. I did wonder whether, as David Kempster's splendidly volatile Iago plants poisonous doubts in the mind of Dennis O'Neill's Otello, the presence of an apple tree and snake is a reference to the serpent's corruption of the blissful Adam and Eve. But I fear that this might be a figment of a critic's imagination.

Curran's ideas seem more simplistic. One longs for a bit more directorial imagination to explain, for example, Iago's hatred (there is virtually no hint of racism), or Otello's gullibility, or the inability of Desdemona - a strong, level-headed woman as played by Amanda Roocroft - to calm her bloke down with a straightforward explanation of her innocuous meeting with Wynne Evans's manifestly unromantic Cassio.

Yet Curran's staging has one inestimable quality. It doesn't get in the way of the mostly glorious music. The WNO orchestra and chorus are in top form under Carlo Rizzi's seasoned direction, and the big ensembles are thrillingly hurled out. So are the fortissimo top notes of the veteran O'Neill, even if his pianissimo head-voice has lost some lustre and his acting is sometimes minimalist. It's hard to detect even a flicker of surprise, for instance, when Iago's duplicity is revealed.

No such worries about Roocroft (pictured with O'Neill), who has one of her golden nights as Desdemona. Her Willow Song is beautifully poignant, and her farewell to Emilia a heartbreaking cry of panic and despair. Catch it all in Cardiff until mid-October, then on tour.

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