London's premier summer opera festival begins this week and Opera Holland Park has lined up as enticing a programme as ever. If fine weather is the one thing this alfresco event can’t depend on, this year general manager Michael Volpe even delivered a perfect summer evening for the opening night.

Though Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux is far from completely forgotten, it is heard rarely enough for any outing such as this to be welcomed. The opera deals with the political and emotional entanglements of the courtier of that name (better known as the Earl of Essex) and Queen Elizabeth I — a story revisited by Donizetti on a number of occasions.

For the first night of its season, OHP had pulled out all the stops. To conduct, they had engaged the Grand Old Man of bel canto himself, Richard Bonynge. In the audience was his wife, Dame Joan Sutherland, and her biographer, Norma Major. Sutherland it was who got one of the evening’s biggest ovations when she took her seat after the interval.

Adding to the lustre of the billing — at least on paper — was Adam Cooper (of Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake fame), who was down as choreographer.

In the lead role of Queen Elizabeth is the soprano Majella Cullagh, who as it happens is more in the mould of Maria Callas than of Sutherland: that is to say, prioritising dramatic intensity and colour over light, trilling virtuosity. Given those qualities she is an excellent choice as Elizabeth, since the role calls for musical intelligence rather than mere pyrotechnics.

She has a fine entrance aria in Act I, in which Cullagh established her credentials with secure, heartfelt singing, and an even weightier number to end the work. The latter, in which the desolate queen gives way to lovesick grief, becomes almost a mad scene. Cullagh rose to the occasion with throbbing, plangent tone, tearing off her wig hysterically to reveal a balding, elderly woman no longer wishing to rule.

Equally strongly cast is Leonardo Capalbo as Essex, whose secure, ringing tone was heard to good effect in his Prison Scene. The role of his lover, Sarah, Duchess of Nottingham, is well taken by Yvonne Howard, who brings to it dignity, grace and vocal authority.

Bonynge supports his singers admirably, distilling a lifetime’s experience into his pacing of each number. Lindsay Posner’s staging is risible, however: hardly a production in any real sense. As for Adam Cooper’s contribution, if a few cod-Elizabethan dance steps qualify for a choreographer’s fee, I’m happy to offer my services.

Until 20 June. (0845 230 9769).