How can it be that La Gazzetta, a Rossini comic opera from the high point of his career, has so completely dropped out of the picture? We owe it to Garsington that it arrives here after 185 years for its first British performance.

Marco Gandini's lively production makes it a marvellous romp and updates the plot to a 1930s hotel. The title refers to the advertisement the central character, Don Pomponio, has put in the paper for a husband to marry his wilful daughter, Lisetta.

Needless to say, she is in love already, with Filippo - in this production the hotel's entertainment manager. To add to the confusion, this conventional triangle of heavy father, sparky daughter and disapproved lover is matched against another. The second trio comprises Anselmo, his daughter, Doralice, and the diffident Alberto, in search of a wife.

Why then is La Gazzetta so neglected? Written for Naples in 1814, it was originally a vehicle for local favourite Carlo Casaccia, whose heavy Neapolitan dialect was his stock-in-trade. That seems to have put a dampener on wider circulation. What's more, the most substantial numbers are ensembles borrowed from Turco in Italia and Pietra del Paragone, with the overture a trial run for that of Cenerentola. The arias are brief and charming, but not ones to send you away humming. Nonetheless, the result sparkles more than enough to satisfy Rossini fans.

Italian conductor Corrado Rovaris, new to the UK, directs the Garsington Opera Orchestra in a crisp reading, and the generally excellent cast is led by Donald Maxwell as Pomponio and Canadian coloratura Carla Huhtanen as a bright, defiant Lisetta.

Mozart's Zauberflöte may have its enigmas but, after the hectic confusions of La Gazzetta, it emerges as clear as daylight in the new Garsington production directed by James Macdonald, with Steuart Bedford pacing the score perfectly. Again there is an updating, this time to the 1920s, with the Queen of Night, as portrayed by Jennifer Rhys-Davies, suggesting an imperious Lady Ottoline Morrell.

The Three Ladies are all well cast, and it is good to have fresh-voiced trebles as the Three Boys. But the full glory of this Zauberflöte is the strength, finesse and poised beauty of the three principals' singing: Rufus Muller as Tamino, Felicity Hammond as a radiant Pamina, rising flawlessly to all vocal challenges, and Riccardo Novaro as a powerful Papageno.

La Gazzetta is in repertory until July 7; Zauberflöte until July 6. Box office: 01865 361636.