Die Vogel, Grand Théâtre, Geneva

You know when a rare opera's a hit by the interval buzz. The excitement surrounding Walter Braunfels's Die Vögel (The Birds) in its heart-warming new staging by Geneva's Grand Théâtre was almost tangible.

This exquisitely costumed, sympathetic production by Yannis Kokkos was entrancing. You need a cuckoo production to direct all the swallows and peewits, sedge warblers and red-necked grebes, toucans, ostriches and pink flamingos who, egged on by two unlikely earthlings, gang up against Zeus in Aristophanes' comedy of 414BC.

But while his Birds is a merciless mockery of political pretension and human foible, Braunfels, writing in the wake of the Great War, turns it into an escapist's yearning for spiritual and erotic fulfilment, summed up in the scene between Hoffegut (Euelpides - Hopewell, or Optimist) and the Nightingale (the wonderful trapeze-borne Marlis Petersen), whose perfect flute-like trills provide much of the enchantment of this beautiful, dawn-chorus-filled score (premiered in Munich in 1920).

Set against Kokkos's geometric cut-outs - an imaginative Neverland landscaped by Patrice Trottier's lighting and Eric Duranteau's startling video imaging (darkling skies explode in a terrifying climax at the stormy dénouement) - these warblers exceed all expectations. Especially good are the Canadian baritone Brett Polegato's shy, feather-crested Hoopoe and Kenneth Cox's resonant, supercilious Eagle.

Every woodpecker wobble and jay's jostle, choreographed by Kokkos and the movement director Richild Springer, was laved in subtle avian emotions. The first chorus entries - from everywhere - were sheer magic, and the Act II choral climax was stupendous.

One visual coup was Kokkos's spectacular handling of Prometheus's problematic entry (the birds having walled off heaven, the glowering demigod warns them of Zeus's mounting wrath). He descends, a giant two-thirds the height of the stage, and booms his vulture-pecked sorrows above the mêlée, before the Deutsche Staatsoper's Roman Trekel emerges to deliver, marvellously, his admonition.

Pär Lindskog's agreeable Hoffegut, a warm, René Kollo-ish Heldentenor, suffered from momentary flattening latterly. But Duccio Dalmonte made a bluff, characterful Gutefreund (Peithetairos/Good Friend) and Regina Klepper an enjoyably fussy Wren.

The conductor Ulf Schirmer revealed neo-Romantic credentials to rival Lothar Zagrosek, prising fabulous sounds from L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in this tingling, numbingly beautiful score.

To 3 February (00 41 224 183 000, www.geneveopera.ch); Braunfels's 'Die Vögel' will also be staged at the Vienna Volksoper from 4 March to 15 April (00 43 1 514 44 3670, www.volksoper.at)