Vaughan Williams's 1928 opera based on Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor is something of a curiosity. It hasn't been staged in the UK for nearly 50 years, and opinions differ as to its worth. Its detractors have compared it unfavourably with Verdi's Falstaff, derived from the same source. Its admirers, meanwhile, argue that it should be assessed independently of its better-known predecessor.

English National Opera's new production reveals it to be not quite the masterpiece that some have claimed, though it's also far from negligible. Dramatically there are occasional moments of narrative confusion, though the score has an expansive, elegiac quality that poignantly contrasts both the wisdom and folly of age with the emotional certainties of youth. Falstaff's utterances combine rueful wit with warm sincerity. The lovers, Anne and Fenton, are given duets of almost Puccinian sweep.

Ian Judge's production transposes the opera to the late 19th century and points up the differences between solidly bourgeois values and outmoded aristocratic uncertainties. Mistress Ford goes up to town to shop in Knightsbridge, while her husband dons his bowler hat and pinstripes to head for the office. Falstaff is very much the country squire out of his depth in stuffily posh suburbia, while Fenton, sporting natty silk waistcoats, is a glamorous city slicker, slumming it for the sake of passion.

It's conducted with humorous passion by Oleg Caetani, and wonderfully performed by an ensemble cast that reads like a Who's Who of British opera in the past two decades. Andrew Shore's beer-swigging, libidinous Falstaff is funny yet touching, though he goes frighteningly to pieces when the merry wives' conniving goes too far. His persecutors include Jean Rigby's rather prurient Mistress Ford, Marie McLaughlin's suave Mistress Page and Alastair Miles's nerdy, uptight Ford. Anne and Fenton are played by Sarah Fox and Andrew Kennedy, who sound glorious in their scenes together. It's not the greatest opera you will ever hear, but it makes for a hugely entertaining evening.

· Until April 1. Box office 0870 145 0200