La Gazza Ladra, Garsington Opera, Oxford

Affectionate take on the Magpie

Talk about productive. La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie) was Rossini at his peak – written in less than 12 weeks, premièred at La Scala, Milan, in May 1817, a year after Rome heard The Barber of Seville, and just weeks after La Cenerentola (Rome) and Mose in Egitto (Naples). The material (a tale of feminine filial loyalty with some links to Fidelio) is strong: a soldier father under threat of death for desertion, a daughter loyal even unto death, a betrothal wrecked by false accusation, a villain abusing authority. Milan, not yet given to adoring Rossini, loved it; one can see why, given the strengths of the music.

The opera includes some extraordinary concerted build-ups with which Rossini eclipses even what has preceded. It was these, brilliantly contrived by conductor David Parry, beginning with the slow-paced crescendo of the overture, that supplied the most satisfying element of all in Daniel Slater's clear, relatively traditional production for Garsington Opera, sponsored by the Peter Moores Foundation.

True, Angela Davies's modest set and costumes didn't seem up to much, until the end, when Bruno Poet's lighting – all chilling whites as the climax (the heroine's apparent execution) impends – flips back to warm yellows, so that a burst of colour with the excellent chorus's return points up the sunny relief as surely as Rossini's change of key. The final chorus was thrilling. But then they were all darned good.

Majella Cullagh, topping the bill as Ninetta, the affianced heroine who hoards her secret near-fatally, wins our hearts and embraces Rossini's coloratura demands with astonishing ease and command. Simon Edwards, doubling with Mark Wilde as Gianetto, her feckless fiancé, produces a wonderfully florid italianate tenor, only twice losing pitch. Bass-baritone Christopher Purves, a dead cert as a blackguard, has some nifty passages to negotiate too; secure throughout, he produces so rich a tone one almost warms to him: a sure sign of shrewd casting.

The evening launches buoyantly thanks to three more fine leads: bass Brindley Sherratt, noble and sympathetic as the boozy farmer Fabrizio; Carole Wilson as his henpecking wife, the nicking of whose cutlery (by the Magpie, it turns out) lands falsely accused Ninetta before a firing squad; and mezzo Nerys Jones, an ENO favourite, vivid in solo and duet, as Pippo. A fine cast, topped out by Russell Smythe's battle-scarred officer on the run, colourfully reinstated by a last-minute royal pardon.

The baritone/bass trio near the close (with everyone else banging on above) was magnificent. Daniel Slater's deft final flurry for Hannah Richards' canny, manipulative Magpie summed up this affectionate and unobtrusive production as a whole.