A new era at Covent Garden begins right here. The production of Ariadne auf Naxos which opened last night not only launches the Royal Opera's season but also heralds the beginning of Antonio Pappano's reign as music director, an arrival that has been eagerly anticipated since his appointment was announced more than two years ago.

For his debut Pappano has brought the German Christof Loy to the Royal Opera House for the first time to direct Strauss's artfully contrived piece, with designer Herbert. Their biggest theatrical coup is staged in the opening moments, when what seems at first sight to be an unremarkable set of an empty elegant salon, with just an elevator door in the middle, suddenly begins to rise, revealing another floor beneath where the singers and musicians are preparing for the evening's entertainment.

It is a pure visual extravagance, mirroring the structure of the opera in which dramatic conceits nestle within one another like Chinese boxes. The action in modern dress is beautifully directed by Loy, every characterisation - Thomas Allen's unkempt Music Master, John Graham Hall's louche Music Master, the seedy retinue surrounding Marlis Petersen's predacious Zerbinetta and especially Sophie Koch's passionate Composer - is carefully wrought. The humour and the deep veins of seriousness are skilfully interwoven, musically and dramatically.

All that is swept away for the opera proper. Historical periods are still elided - 18th, 19th, 20th centuries and the present day mingle in the costumes - but the dramatic heart of the piece is unflinchingly pinpointed.

Petersen manages to be both vulnerable and brittle in her big aria, while both Petra Lang's effortlessly sung Ariadne and Robert Brubaker's Bacchus sustain their final duet in a way that sheds all artifice and touches the opera's emotional core. Pappano conjures glowing colours from the ROH orchestra throughout, though his conducting takes a while to become really expressive.

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