One owner, quite high mileage, still in good condition. The Royal Opera's production of La traviata has barely been out of the repertoire since 1994 when Angela Gheorghiu scored such a hit in the opening performances, but none of the other sopranos who has taken it for a spin has quite made it her own.

The prospects looked good this time round. In her debut with the company four years ago the Puerto Rican soprano Ana Maria Martinez burned up the stage in Don Giovanni as a firebrand Donna Elvira, but unfortunately her spirit seems to have been dampened since then.

It is often said that Verdi asks for three different singers in the role of Violetta. If so, Martinez was only comfortable as one of them. In the first act everything she sang sounded the same, with "safety first" apparently being her motto. In the second act she began to find more variety in the music, but not in the words; and only when the desperate Violetta is on her death bed in the final act did the urgency of the situation at last create some intensity. Martinez has plenty going for her: youth, Latin good looks, and a bright voice bubbling with a fast vibrato on the surface (though it can turn thin at inconvenient moments). Perhaps a first-rate director is needed to mould these parts into a convincing whole.

The relationship that came alive was the one between father and son. Zeljko Lucic was totally believable as Giorgio Germont, the champion of moral authority who hides a father's heart, and sang his music strongly and expressively - here is a useful voice for other Verdi baritone roles. Charles Castronovo looked every inch the romantic poet and lover, and for most of the time his slightly dark and husky tenor sounded it, too (though not in the Act 2 cabaletta, which took him to his limits).

The conductor Philippe Auguin is back in the driving seat for this revival and his sense of pace and direction remain admirable. Altogether, an average trip round the block for this well run-in production.

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