By PAUL LEVY

London

Poetry and Violence

Who was the naughtiest Roman emperor of them all? I'd nominate Elagabalus, but Caligula runs a close second. Albert Camus made him the subject of a 1938 play, intending to remind the audience of Hitler and Stalin; and this is the basis of Detlev Glanert's exciting opera, first produced in Frankfurt in 2006 and now at the English National Opera.

Benedict Andrews, the hot new director in town, is Australian, as are many of the cast and crew. Peter Coleman-Wright sings the title role with charisma and pathos, making you ask yourself why Caligula behaves so very badly. Is it because he can (Camus's existentialist answer), because he feels compelled to (the psychological answer), or is it policy (and thus political)?

Mr. Andrews has placed the contemporary-dress production in a stadium, recalling Pinochet's atrocities in Chile. But no London audience can help thinking of the Olympics just now, and dressing the depraved Livia in a curly red wig may call to mind the Leveson Inquiry. The light directorial touch, however, means there is nothing so pointed as an allegory, or crude as a concrete correspondence to living people, to undercut either the poetry or the violence of this piece.

Even on first hearing, Mr. Glanert's score has some wonderfully memorable moments—including almost the whole of the third act, with its beautiful chorale, and the poignant end of the second act, when Caligula repeats a single note as the double basses play a fading, descending scale. A 25-note chord represents Caligula, and when it is thundered on the organ, even the ENO's massive auditorium seems to shudder.

Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth gets terrific playing from his large orchestra, and there are top-notch performances from Yvonne Howard as Caligula's wife (who allows him to murder her in a disturbingly sexy fashion), Christopher Ainslie as the emperor's personal Ariel-cum-Caliban slave and Carolyn Dobbin in the boy's-sized trouser role of Scipio.

—Paul Levy

Until June 14

www.eno.org

Write to Paul Levy at wsje.weekend@wsj.com