The effort is always worth it. Graham Vick's productions for the company he created are unique in British opera, not only a model of how to involve a local community in opera, but of how to work with a mixture of professional singers and amateurs (who, in this show, act but do not sing) without compromises. The theatrical results in this Ulysses are extraordinary, musical standards, with a period orchestra conducted by Robert Howarth, are exceptionally high and some of the solo performances are world class.

Vick treats Il Ritorno d'Ulisse, sung in a new translation by Christopher Cowell, as a parable of political asylum. Designed by Tim O'Brien, the huge performing space becomes a reception camp for asylum seekers, diagonally divided by a high wire fence patrolled by guards. Outside, displaced people queue to be interrogated; inside Penelope has her court, surrounded by her carousing hangers-on. The audience spends the first half beyond the fence too, herded between Eumaeus's kebab van to one side and the lorry trailers, on which scenes are played out, to the other. After that they are admitted to gilded seats inside the camp to watch the rest of the drama unfold.

The opera does not always fit Vick's vision, but everything is done with such sure touch and imagination that doesn't matter. The crucial scenes - Ulysses's meeting with his son, Telemachus, his slaying of the suitors, and final reconciliation with Penelope - are played with extraordinarily tender realism. Paul Nilon's exceptional performance as Ulysses, one of the best things he's done, is the beating heart of the production. Emma Selway's Penelope is not quite so memorable but her restraint and poise in the final scene are touching.

Adrian Thompson's Eumaeus, Mark Wilde's Telemachus, and Andrew Forbes-Lane's Max Miller-like Irus are all superb too, while Wendy Dawn Thompson - a bunny-girl Fortune one moment, a biker-girl Minerva the next - switches goddesses with aplomb. But everybody should be mentioned; it's a wonderful experience.