This is probably the best chance yet for Covent Garden's 2002 production of Verdi's tunefest. Both casts on its two previous outings have left something to be desired, but this one has the potential to be very good. Indeed, without a top-notch cast, there would be little reason to sit through Elijah Moshinsky's monumental but clunky production. There is more to this opera than a string of melodramatic baby-swapping cloak-swishing gypsy-curse-fulfilling cliches, but Moshinsky barely goes there.

Nicola Luisotti is an understanding conductor, assiduous at holding back to give the singers space, less good at driving forward again. On the first night, Catherine Naglestad's secure delivery of most of Leonora's music in her substantial, glinting soprano was a real pleasure, so it was a shame that she muffed the last note of her Part Four aria. Likewise, Marcelo Alvarez's first offstage entries as the troubadour Manrico were thumpingly well sung, but his big aria, Di Quella Pira, was not the climax it should be.

No doubts, though, about Anthony Michaels-Moore, whose transition from baby-faced baritone to snarling Verdian villain offered rich rewards. But the star performance came from Stephanie Blythe as the gypsy Azucena: all she had to do was sit, glower and sing, and her huge laser-guided mezzo hits us right between the eyes.

· In rep until February 23. Box office: 020-7304 4000.