Galileo Galilei, Barbican Theatre, London

Elegant repetition in the Glass house

For his 18th opera, Galileo Galilei – given its European première by the Goodman Theatre from Chicago as part of Bite:02 – Philip Glass has chosen a collaborator, Mary Zimmerman, who has a reputation for work far removed from the cool, narrative-free zones inhabited by Glass's long-time collaborator, Robert Wilson.

Their libretto tells Galileo's life story, but in reverse: beginning with the now-blind astronomer ruminating on the consequences of his discoveries. The first four of the opera's 10 scenes, including Galileo's recantation and interrogation by the Inquisition, are staged in an essentially realist manner. Daniel Ostling's sets and Mara Blumenfeld's costumes are faithful to Renaissance models, with a few modern touches (including sunglasses for the blind Older Galileo); TJ Gerckens' luscious lighting makes the whole stage glow with Italianate warmth. Intermittent supertitles are elegantly incorporated into the design.

But even the depiction of the Inquisition includes occasionally unnaturalistic diversions. And as the opera progresses to its two crucial central scenes – dramatisations of, respectively, Galileo's seminal Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World and, as Carl Halvorson's capable Older Galileo is replaced by Eugene Perry's ardently sung and acted Younger Galileo, some of the astronomer's early experiments – a more symbolic and modernist mise-en-scène rather delightfully takes over.

The final stages of the work, which plays continuously for about 90 minutes, are less sure of their balance between these two worlds. And the concluding opera within an opera – a lurid allegory based on the story of Orion, supposedly composed by Galileo's father, the composer Vincenzio Galilei, watched wonderingly by the boy Galileo – squanders its considerable opportunities in horridly hammy fashion. Nevertheless, the overall effect of Galileo Galilei is striking.

Glass was perhaps right to avoid aping this dramatic scheme too slavishly. Yet his famously repetitive manner has long proved sufficiently flexible to encompass a variety of styles, and it's a pity that the idea of taking the opera backwards to the origins of its own form (Galilei has been credited with the invention of opera), as well as taking Galileo himself back to his own beginnings, was reflected only in a galumphing move into a slow waltz; a more rigorous 16th-century pastiche would surely have worked well here.

Still, Glass's score is acutely responsive to the text and the mood of each scene. And he even gets away from that famously relentless rhythmic chugging from time to time, most successfully in the syncopated manner adopted for the experiment scene. The singers coped with varying degrees of success with the considerable demands made on them. Beatrice Affron did a very efficient job conducting a small ensemble from the City of London Sinfonia, for which Glass provides, however, only occasional moments of true inspiration.

To 9 Nov (020-7638 8891)