Since taking over as general director of English Touring Opera, James Conway has given the company the sense of artistic direction lacking for several years. The latest season consists of two new shows, though the production of Handel's Ariodante (Conway's own) is shared with the Opera Theatre Company Ireland, who first presented it earlier this year.

Ariodante turns out to be unremarkable, a salutary reminder of how hard it remains to present Handel's operas on stage effectively, though the Royal Opera's recent staging of Orlando did that too, far more expensively. Here Louise Mott in the title role is vocally decent but hardly provides the focus of attention she needs to, and the rest of the cast cope as best they can. For his English version, Conway relocates the scenario (originally derived from Ariosto) to the Scottish reformed church movement - to no obvious dramatic effect. And Lawrence Cummings' conducting of a period band (one of Conway's innovations for ETO) is drab.

Adrian Osmond's staging of Britten's Turn of the Screw offers a much better evening's entertainment - more vocally consistent and dramatically cogent. Presented in simple, effective designs by Michael Vale, it is given real musical momentum by Stuart Stratford's conducting.

While Osmond doesn't impose a hard-edged view on this notoriously open-ended opera (except perhaps to tell us that the ghosts are up to no good), he still teases out its important elements. It is left up to the audience to decide whether this Miles (strongly portrayed by Zico Shaker) really has been abused or is just a very naughty boy, and whether the Governess (a slightly underpowered performance by Emma Gane) means well or not. The most memorable productions of Turn of the Screw would perhaps leave you in no doubt, but here Christopher Steele is a vocally striking Peter Quint, Christine Botes a quietly effective Mrs Grose and Rebekah Coffey a feisty Flora. Well worth catching.

· At Snape Maltings, Suffolk (01728 687110), tomorrow and Saturday, then touring.