THE opera-going public of Devizes turned up in droves to see how White Horse Opera would cope without their founder and musical director Keith Lawley in their production of Bellini's Norma at the Corn Exchange, Devizes.

They need not have feared. In the hands of veteran conductor Eric Wetherall, the music was well up to standard and the singing was impeccable from principals and chorus alike.

The plot of Norma is typically off-beam for an operatic libretto. Norma is the high priestess of Druids in Gaul during the Roman occupation.

She has had an illicit affair with the local Roman governor, Pollione, with whom she has had two children.

But he has eyes on a young virgin called Adalgisa who knows nothing of his relations with Norma. Needless to say, when each finds out about the other, there is a great deal of high passion.

Or there should be. Graham Billing directs his own English translation and, whether it is the well-mannered nature of our language or some rhymes worthy of Tim Rice (I've read the omens, you won't defeat the Romans), the text never evokes the fury of a woman betrayed or the tragedy her betrayal unleashes.

The design by Andrew Taylor is well thought out.

The action takes place against a snow-covered woodland backdrop. The Druids are not the berobed mob who turn up at Stonehenge on midsummer's day but Balkan partisans.

A shame that the chorus, who sing beautifully, stroll onstage listlessly and don't give the impression that, at one word from Norma, they would fall on the Romans and tear them limb from limb.

Geraldine Aylmer-Kelly (formerly Lawley) tackles Norma, one of the most demanding female roles in opera, with aplomb. But she lacks that dramatic energy that would skewer the audience to their seats.

Her duets with Pamela Rudge as Adalgisa are, however, divine and send a genuine tingle up the spine. Miss Rudge, though saddled with the worst wig in the show, gives a performance out of the top drawer.

Perhaps because we have come to expect so much of him, Paul Arden-Griffiths' Pollione is disappointing, too mannered and self-regarding to engage either sympathy or antipathy.

Nevertheless, the finale when Norma and Pollione sacrifice themselves to placate the Druid gods is thundering good stuff.

Lewis Cowen