Semele has the dubious honour of being the most vain and most foolish girl in all of Handel's works: bored by her respectable boyfriend Athamus, she hitches up with Jupiter for a more thrilling ride. This invokes the lethal jealousy of Juno, who tricks Semele into demanding that Jupiter shows himself in his true divine form as "the mighty thunderer". Poor Semele ignores Jupiter's warnings and gets more than her fingers burned.

Stephen Langridge's canny new production of Semele is emotionally truthful and mostly faithful to Handel's text: Semele starts out in her father's burger bar where the staff devoutly worship designer trainers, Hello! magazine and trashy TV. Semele runs away to become a supermodel, but is destroyed when her wealthy new boyfriend turns out to be a drug dealer who reluctantly assassinates her after she discovers his secret. The scenes in Arcadia (a luxurious penthouse transformed into a Caribbean island when Semele begins to show signs of boredom again) were wonderfully delivered, yet the portrayal of the mortal realm of the Thebans (the plebeians) was circumspect.

Langridge's insistent observations upon the superficiality of global commercialisation were neatly achieved, but the gently affectionate core of this fine production was spoilt by being over-conceptualised.

However, at its best this Semele was a lesson in how to stage da capo arias effectively without gimmicky, and confirmed that modern stagings of Handel can be thought-provoking without being crassly provocative.

Tenor Tom Randle's baritonal timbre made Jupiter's mellifluous arias sound like hard work, but he was mesmerising. In the title role, Helen Williams acted to sexy perfection, but vocally went awry in several crucial arias. Michael George, the veteran Handel oratorio bass, made his operatic debut with astonishing confidence and stole the show as the drowsy Somnus.

The Symphony of Harmony and Invention, despite being half the size of the band Handel would have used, met the rigorous demands of the score with moments of warmth, intimacy, agility and imposing grandeur when required.

The continuo section was not entirely sure-footed, although Harry Christophers's unfussy direction was generally reliable and uncontroversial.

The small resident chorus possessed vigorous confidence, although its operatic voices did not ideally realise the contrapuntal flexibility of Handel's choral writing.

· In rep until July 19. Box office: 0845 12 72190.