{TABLE} The Gypsy Baron .... J. Strauss {/TABLE} THE production of The Gypsy Baron currently running at the National Concert Hall deals efficiently with some of the challenges posed by staging opera in this venue. The director/designer, John Lloyd Davies, has surrounded the stage with irregularly shaped panels which rise up through the choir stalls and are painted as snowy mountains. Most of the action takes place centre stage, on a low dais flanked by two open fronted cubicles - Czipia's house and the platform for the narrator. Scene changes are achieved via some neat lighting designed by Paul Keogan, the RTE Concert Orchestra is placed between the stage and the audience, and the Opera Ireland Chorus sits in the snowy mountains.

There are some cuts in this joint RTE/Opera Ireland production, but the gaps ate filled by a linking narrative written by John Lloyd Davies, so the plot moves along with breathless haste.

This is a confident production and only a few obvious hitches occurred on its first night There was confidence, too, in the RTECO's strongly characterised playing once they had put a less than sparkling performance of the overture behind them. The fresh lone of the Opera Ireland Chorus was always pleasant to listen to and they usually coped well with the gulf between them bad the conductor, Proinnsias O Duinn.

The soloists are Deirdre Cooling Nolan (Czipra); Majella Cullagh (Saffi); Pawel Izdebski (Kalman Zsupan); Margaret Maguire (Mirabella); Niall Morris (Ottokar), Frank O'Brien, (Count Homonay); John O Flynn (Conte Carnero and narrator); Alan Oke (Sandor Barinkay) and Alison Roddy (Arsena) a reliable group with no obviously weak links. Alan Oke has the strength and lightness for the title role, while Alison Roddy's stage presence and vocal security are striking. Best of all, however, is Majella Cullagh as a seductive and endearing Saffi, who shows command tag musicianship in some of the op era's best songs.