Handel turned to oratorio when the bottom fell out of the market for Italian opera. Opera North has turned to oratorio while the roof has temporarily come off its theatre. But as the company's base gets an overhaul, it's a perfect opportunity to explore works that occupy the hinterland between dramatic and concert performance.

John Fulljames's semi-staged treatment is played out against the hero's name spelled out in towering, orange letters, which rather gives the impression that the leader of the Israelites is the star of a 1970s soul revue. Nor is the occasional introduction of props always to the most fortunate effect - Tim Mead's David has to make his first entrance carrying Goliath's head in a napkin, and it's not until he divests himself of this noisome package that one can really begin to take him seriously.

However, Mead is a countertenor of exceptional vocal beauty, and his account of the callow lad who would be king is compelling. Lucy Crowe, another strikingly fresh young singer, produces a remarkably opulent and mature tone as Michal.

Saul's role is slightly constricted by a libretto demanding that he remain in a jealous fury for the best part of three hours. Fortunately, Robert Hayward is extremely good at this sort of thing, and produces a riveting display of deep-pitched paranoid psychosis.

Christian Curnyn's conducting has a great sense of theatrical shape, though Saul's slightly cursory disposal on the battlefield does rather compromise the piece's claim to be a viable work of drama. Yet one can hardly expect Saul's enemies to have any appreciation of dramatic timing, of course: they're Philistines, the lot of them.

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