The Rake is progressing everywhere at the moment. English Touring Opera is taking its production of Stravinsky's only full-length stage work to far-flung corners of the country, as well as bringing it to London at the end of next month, while in the summer the celebrated John Cox/David Hockney production is due back at Glyndebourne. All that made this performance, conducted by Richard Hickox, rather superfluous. The concert hall can be a useful place to revive rarities or present established works with starry casts that could never be assembled in an opera house, but neither criterion applied here.

Not that the evening was short of a star - it's just that Philip Langridge's Tom Rakewell, still plausibly youthful and still sung with total freedom and naturalness, is a known quantity from disc and stage. The artistry is tremendous, but it's unlikely to surprise us now. And neither Laura Claycomb as Anne nor Peter Coleman-Wright as Nick Shadow could show their potential in this rather hit-and-miss semi-staging. She was careless with her words; he was rather too suave and genteel.

The London Symphony Chorus obviously enjoyed themselves as whores, roaring boys and lunatic; the City of London Sinfonia seemed less comfortable with a score that needs to be delivered as crisply as possible. Though Hickox tried to whip up some energy and pizzazz, the opera was never funny, never perceptive and never moving, even in the normally never-fail moments.

***** Unmissable **** Recommended *** Enjoyable ** Mediocre * Terrible