This year alone, the Chisinau National Opera from the former Soviet republic of Moldova will be giving over 190 fully staged performances throughout the UK and Ireland.

Like a well known brand of lager, they reach the parts that our own companies - with their much higher production costs - are unable to reach.

The British operatic estab-lishment might, with some justification, argue that the Chisinau artists are underpaid and are forced to endure the kind of gru-elling schedule that would make the extended tours of the old Carl Rosa, D'oyly Carte or Sadlers Wells Opera seem like long vacations.

The Chisinau's unashamedly populist style re-awakens memories of a long vanished era. I have to say that I found it a refreshing change to experience a traditional, gimmick-free production of Aida - sumptu-ously costumed and staged in the setting of ancient Egypt as Verdi intended. This is of course one of the grandest of grand operas. The always eagerly awaited Triumph' scene includes a full scale ballet and the Chisinau forces staged this in all of its required splendour replete with an incredible fire display. Indeed, a line of gas fuelled flames at the front of the stage flared up to an alarming height at the beginning of the Triumphant March.

The lavish spectacle of this scene represents but a small part of the opera, much of which depicts private meetings between the principal protagonists - such as Aida and Amneris's Act 2 scene 1 confrontation, Radames' Act 4 confrontation with Amneris and the final entombment of Radames and Aida.

On the debit side, it must be said that the company's wooden style of acting simply deprived these crucial scenes of the vital spark that a great director would have generated - as in Philip Prowse's 1986 production for Opera North.

Musically speaking, the company delivers the goods and they have a large ensemble of principals so that each role is double cast - surely a necessity for such a hectic performance schedule.

Galina Bernaz gave a beautifully sung performance of the title role and Korean tenor Patrizio Ha was a handsome Radames. His is a big, exciting voice, at times unwieldy but with the necessary vocal power for this, one of the heaviest' of tenor roles. Zarui Vardanean's Amneris was vocally on the lighter side but she gives an ap-pealing, finely judged perform-ance.

The large orchestra and cho-rus conducted by Nicolae Doho-taru produce a full-blooded Ver-dian sound and I sensed im-mense enjoyment and apprecia-tion from the large audience at the end of the performance. They appear again at St George's Hall on Saturday, Ocx-tober 20, with Bizet's Carmen.