Concert opera in London has a new champion. London Lyric Opera launched at the Barbican last week with an ambitious first effort, Wagner's storm-tossed Flying Dutchman. On hand were the Royal Philharmonic, the conductor Lionel Friend, and, apparently, a first: the score “as originally intended by the composer”.

A pity that the most jarring part of this performance was the one intention Wagner would never have had: two intervals slotted into his shortest opera. Once he has put his cards are on the table - the lonely hero, his troubled saviour, Senta, and her betrayed fiancé, Erik - Wagner doesn't hang about. Indeed, that's why many opera companies now run Dutchman in one tense instalment. But here the momentum was badly sapped.

So much for authenticity. For the record, the most hyped adjustment in this performance - using a higher key for Senta's treacherous ballad - was a gamble that paid off. In a remarkable portrayal of near- psychotic obsession, Gweneth-Ann Jeffers's gleaming soprano leapt all her vocal hurdles, ballad included, with lacerating force and deep emotional insight. As she was frantically wooed by Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts's fervent Erik, theirs were the confrontations of the night.

Otherwise things were decidedly patchy. The evening marked something of a labour of love for the company founder, the Australian baritone James Hancock, who has apparently studied the title role for years and therefore cast himself in it. Perhaps it was nerves, perhaps his greying baritone is simply not big, broad or accurately enough projected to scale the Wagnerian heights, but this was a mistake. So, too, was his fussy semi-staging, which drew some particularly woolly performances from Richard Roberts's gormless Steersman and Karl Huml's horribly miscast Daland.

The RPO had a good, not a great, night: the rich and resinous woodwind getting the most out of Friend's friendly beat, but he was much more comfortable with the dreamy Romanticism of Wagner's soundscapes than their spooky undertow. Noses deep in their scores, the Philharmonia Chorus were lusty enough when it counted. Plenty to build on for LLO's next show, Fidelio, in February.

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