There is a fair bit of injecting in James Macdonald's production of Rigoletto, set in John F Kennedy's White House. The political nuisance, Monterone, is dispensed with in a One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest moment, restrained in a wheelchair and silenced by chemicals, while Maddalena has to give herself a fix to steel herself for a night's dirty work as her assassin brother's accomplice.

But it was a metaphorical shot in the arm that turned this opening night of Welsh National Opera's revival into a memorable occasion when, at a few hours' notice, tenor Gwyn Hughes Jones replaced an indisposed Wynne Evans as the Duke, and from his very first aria signalled just what a vocal force he has become. Adrenaline levels rose perceptibly - conductor Michal Klauza's included -and never fell.

Three years ago when this staging was new, Hughes Jones sang the role on WNO's tour. With a more confident swagger and high notes now as robustly rich as the lower (he was originally a baritone), he was able to make the presidential figure of Macdonald's concept more viable. His fix is women, the need is clearly insatiable, but it was possible to believe that in Gilda he found love, if only briefly, and Hughes Jones achieved a touching tenderness here. Olga Trifonova was a musically expressive Gilda with a lovely bloom to the sound and, while her Italian was often indistinct, Verdi's scenes of filial and paternal love, always the most potent, were strongly sustained, with the quartet in the third act equally emotive.

Baritone Jonathan Summers first sang the hunchback Rigoletto 30 years ago. He still packs an emotional punch, with a manic intensity to his performance, especially in the horseplay with the president's men. It meant that, in the final tragic bars as daughter Gilda dies in his arms, the image of a man driven as much by hate as by love was powerfully imprinted.

· At the WMC tonight. Box office: 08700 402000. Then touring.