Domenico Cimarosa�s opera The Secret Marriage is neither Mozart nor Rossini, but with its frequent Mozartian grace and its bracing Rossinian pace is, if you like, on its way from one to the other.

Star rating ***
Domenico Cimarosa's opera The Secret Marriage is neither Mozart nor Rossini, but with its frequent Mozartian grace and its bracing Rossinian pace is, if you like, on its way from one to the other. It is also, as was evident in Scottish Opera's debut production of the work, which opened the company's new season on Tuesday night, a delightful and sparkling opera, packed with delicious music, streams of cracking arias, patter songs and ensemble numbers, yards of wit and comedy, touches of real emotional depth, and endless stylishness.

And all these qualities are reflected in Harry Fehr's lovely production for Scottish Opera, which understates the comedy, making it funnier, resisting all temptation to make it nutty in a Keystone Cops style, or wacky like a farce: it is stage direction with the human touch, avoiding portraying the deaf Geronimo as a buffoon, while sisters Elisetta and Carolina, early in the opera, are the real bitching McCoy, biting and hair-pulling.

The production, set comfortably in the 1950s, just before all hell broke loose with convention in the sixties, is stunningly designed by Tom Rogers, with an elegant, multi-level set, cross-sectioned so that the action, cleverly, can take place simultaneously in different rooms and hallways.

Garry Walker conducts the production very crisply and tautly, with a real feel for the pace and structure of the work, and with keenly articulate playing from the Scottish Opera orchestra.

The cast, in truth, is of varying strengths and qualities of voice, with a very good Geronimo and Count by Andrew Slater and Quirijn de Lang, and reasonable performances from Wendy Dawn Thompson as Fidalma and Renate Arends and Rebecca Bottone as the sisters.