English National Opera's stealthy progress towards its new Ring cycle, due to reach its final form at the Coliseum in 2004 and 2005, has entered its second phase. The four "staged concert" performances of The Valkyrie follow the similar presentation of The Rheingold a year ago. They are to be regarded as work-in-progress, public workshops almost, designed to allow the singers of these roles to grow into them gradually, and for Jeremy Sams's new English translation to be tested on an audience.

Michael Walling has again given the performance a basic theatrical packaging. Harps, timpani and percussion spill out of the orchestra pit on to each side of the stage. There is a simple lighting plot, intermittent use of a smoke machine and a mix of modern-dress costumes - trench coats for Wotan and Fricka, leather for the Valkyries, dirty white for Siegmund and Sieglinde. Actions and reaction are minimal and everything is delivered head-on to the audience, presumably to ensure maximum clarity. That ploy is only partially successful; in fact Sams's text becomes progressively less audible through the evening, and significant tracts of the final act go astray.

With this Valkyrie the cast is closer to that envisaged for the final production than it was for Rheingold in one crucial aspect: Robert Hayward now sings Wotan, taking over from Matthew Best (who is assuming the role in the current Scottish Opera cycle). How his interpretation will mature remains to be seen. At present it tends to be declaimed rather than sung, and delivered at very much the same dynamic level throughout. There is not much evidence of nobility in his singing, nor, in Wotan's Farewell, of credible tenderness. Kathleen Broderick is Brunnhilde; she was very publicly sacked from Scottish Opera's production of Die Walküre during rehearsals last summer, but Scotland's loss promises to be London's gain.

For once we have a genuinely feminine portrayal and, provided her voice gains a bit more authority and incisiveness, someone who really could make the role her own. So too could Orla Boylan as Sieglinde, summoning enough sensuous phrases to suggest she really will grow into the part, though Par Lindskog's acid-toned, out-of-tune Siegmund is much more of a problem. Susan Parry continues to make a formidable Fricka, but Hunding is the rather rough-and-ready Gerard O'Connor. The Valkyries are a feisty bunch. Paul Daniel's conducting will gain in breadth, but it already has the measure of most of the important dramatic spans; the orchestral playing will surely tighten up too.

· Further performances tomorrow, February 23 and March 2. Box office: 020-7632 8300.