The New London Consort first presented Monteverdi's opera in 2003. This year, the 400th anniversary of the first performance of L'Orfeo in Mantua, was an obvious time to revive Jonathan Miller's staging, and over the next few months the production will be toured widely. It makes a perfect introduction to the first operatic masterpiece, a direct, unfussy presentation of an extraordinary work.

Miller's treatment is spare and clear, with the cast of 10 singers dressed in present-day casual clothes and given the most minimal props. Their movement has been carefully choreographed (by Sue Lefton), with the dances gently antique in feel. The sense of close-knit community in the outer acts is sharply contrasted with Orfeo's journey to the underworld. Even at home, this Orfeo is made to seem aloof from his companions - a fully formed, flesh-and-blood character, certainly, but always set apart by his god-given gifts as a musician.

The tenor Mark Tucker is Orfeo, completely absorbed in the role and powerfully pleading in his pivotal third-act aria, Possente Spirto - which also brings the best out of Philip Pickett's edition of the score, with its instrumental ritornellos imaginatively varied. Pickett has his own well-researched ideas about how L'Orfeo might have been first performed in the ducal palace of the Gonzagas, and the version he conducts is an attempt to recreate that soundworld as far as possible.

From the moment in the Prologue when Joanne Lunn gets the whole fable underway with La Musica's aria about the power of her art, the meshing of the score and the drama is perfectly achieved. Every member of the cast seems totally at ease, so that this recreation of the most important event in the history of opera seems the most natural thing in the world.

· At Colston Hall, Bristol, on April 12. Box office: 0117-922 3686. Then touring.