La Bohème review – Puccini as you want it to be done

John Copley's veteran production of the Puccini opera that even Stravinsky liked is 40 years old. But this season's run, its 27th revival, shows there is still plenty of gas left in its tank and, with Copley returning once more to direct, the whole thing comes up freshly sparkling and focused.

Copley apart, much of the credit goes to the young German conductor Cornelius Meister making his Covent Garden debut. Meister's commitment shines through on every page. He grips the score impressively – sometimes a little too intrusively – and he elicits a rewarding evening of incisive playing from the orchestra. (Meister returns next year for Die Zauberflöte. He's one to follow.)

With seven performances over 10 days, the revival offers rotating casts. Angela Gheorghiu's Mimi will star on the BP Big Screen transmissions on 15 July. But she will have to be at her best to match the dramatic power of Ermonela Jaho in the role. Jaho brings the same intensity to Mimi as she did to Puccini's Suor Angelica in 2011. She may lack the last ounce of lyric weight in some of Mimi's lower-lying music, but the softness and spirituality of her singing in the upper register has you hanging on every phrase. You will have to live a long life to encounter a Mimi who inhabits the role more convincingly and intelligently.

Her Rodolfo, Charles Castronovo, doesn't command the greatest vocal sheen, but his tenor is excitingly robust and, like his fellow Bohèmians, he looks the part. Markus Werba is luxury casting as Marcello, Jongmin Park is a resonant Colline and Daniel Grice, in a house debut, is a well-turned Schaunard. Simona Mihai's Musetta, meanwhile, is sympathetically acted and pertly sung, and Donald Maxwell and Jeremy White score in the cameo roles of Alcindoro and Benoît. The late Julia Trevelyan Oman's sets are as impressive today as they were in 1974.

This is La Bohème as you want it to be done. Grade I listing status has been conferred on lesser achievements.