Musically excellent and vocally thrilling - but just what has director Richard Jones done to Verdi's interpretation of Shakespeare's most gory play?

Yes, there is much blood on the stage and many blood-stained axes and dismembered corpses littering the set, as you might expect. But this modern dress version of Macbeth is probably best seen with eyes closed.

I'm afraid I'm something of a traditionalist and like my witches in black pointy hats and with hooked noses and warts. To see these witches and their covens in a variety of baggy trousers, shell-suits, mini-skirts and coloured tights does nothing for me.

And when they all emerged from three modern-day caravans, I wondered whether this was a send-up, or perhaps a celebration of Britain's favourite caravanner, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett.

There was so much plaid in the costumes and the sets that one could not doubt we were in Scotland, but I prefer my Scottish Highlands to be full of crags, mists, drizzle and storms rather than bright lights. And in the cauldron scene I was almost speechless with rage as I gazed upon a modern domestic range on which sat a lonely saucepan.

The ballet which surrounds this scene was messy to say the least.

But there was a plus side. There was fine singing, especially from French soprano Sylvie Valayre. As a wonderfully haughty Lady Macbeth, she was dressed in a turquoise twopiece suit. And Polish baritone Andrzej Dobber made a fine and bloody performance in the title role.

Glyndebourne's Musical Director Vladimir Jurowaski got some great sounds from the London Philharmonic Orchestra, of which he is going to be boss later this year, and made up for Jones's risible supernatural scenes with music that was assuredly haunting.

If you must see this production, it will be back in Glyndebourne On Tour at Glyndebourne in October - but you can, and I think this the best option, hear it on BBC Radio 3 live from The Proms on July 24.

  • Times vary. Ticket details 01273 813813.