When a production is revived at Bayreuth, it usually works better than when new. That is because revivals here, unlike metropolitan theatres, get thorough rehearsal, with the original team in attendance and quirks in casting ironed out. It is what Wolfgang Wagner, the composer's 85-year old grandson and festival director, used to call "Werkstatt Bayreuth" (Bayreuth workshop), though the term is not heard much now. Lohengrin, directed by Keith Warner and designed by Stefanos Lazaridis and Sue Blane, shows that the workshop approach does not always work.

Back in 2001 their staging hinted at the polarity of worlds inhabited by the "good" and "bad" characters. But the key to understanding its conceptual basis was an essay Warner wrote for critics (as is the custom at Bayreuth) rather than its clarity of thought and design. Having since viewed the first two parts of Warner's Ring at Covent Garden, I can see why this Lohengrin makes little sense without the crib-sheet. It is full of obscure symbols that provide an intellectual puzzle for the initiated. Why does water tip out of the stage-platform when Telramund is killed? Why does Elsa spend so much time gathering up swords during the transition to the final scene?

Artfully lit, the production strives for "split-screen" effects that might, in other hands, have some point. But the overall impression is of an overdressed, old-fashioned Lohengrin in which the chorus is static and the principals are typecast. The end - like everything before it - is gloomy: Lohengrin chooses a new ruler at random, and everyone except Ortrud dies.

After an uncertain first act, the performance on Tuesday warmed up nicely, and Peter Seiffert delivered a strong final narration. But the casting and conducting (Peter Schneider) was no better than you would find anywhere else in Germany and it was left to the ever-wonderful Bayreuth chorus to salvage some artistic pride.

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