Le Jardin des Voix/ Les Arts Florissants/ William Christie, Barbican Hall, London<br></br>Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Royal Opera House, London

Love it or loathe it, the cross-fertilisation between high and low culture is an unstoppable force. Last month pop impresario Pete Waterman admitted that I Should Be So Lucky owes a heavy debt to Pachelbel's Canon, while this week fans of Les Arts Florissants may be wondering whether director William Christie has developed a private predilection for Pop Idol. Give or take the absence of dry ice and the presence of a theorbo, Le Jardin des Voix – average age 25 – are pure baroque and roll.

If the male members of Christie's latest pedagogical venture in performance practice bear a strong resemblance to a pre-packaged boy band – all sticky quiffs, turned-up shirt-collars, hanging shirt-tails and hands-in-pocket posing – their female counterparts look like budding actrices in the kind of movies that hold long, lavishly eroticised shots of abandoned Gauloises in zinc ashtrays. There's little doubt that pop-star looks played some part in the selection process for this highly specialised fame academy but, as was clearly demonstrated through their long and demanding prospectus of English, French, German and Italian repertoire, the voices in question are equally attractive. In addition to looking like a supermodel, mezzo-soprano Blandine Staskiewicz has a voice that combines the emotional directness of a young Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson with the clarity of a young Bernarda Fink. Though properly self-effacing in consort, Staskiewicz gave an electrifying performance as Arcabonne in two scenes from Lully's Amadis, well-matched by her Arcalaus, baritone Gabriel Bermudez – a strong presence, warm voice, and probably the most stylistically flexible of this year's alumni – while Jeffrey Thompson combined the studied cool of Chet Baker with an ecstatic, elastic and spine-tingling haute-contre in Purcell's Celestial Music.

Sopranos Orlanda Velez Isidro, Soledad Cardoso and, in particular, Celine Ricci were no less promising and, though more obviously vocally hampered by youth, bass Joao Fernandez and baritone Marc Mauillon both displayed engaging stage personalities. But, from a strictly musical point of view, this graduation programme had its faults. The playing of Les Arts Florissants was, as ever, unutterably chic, sensitive and vivid throughout – almost tear-provokingly perfect in the passacaglia from King Arthur – but, in his desire to display nine different voices across four or five markedly different styles of repertoire, Christie's whirlwind tour of 17th- and 18th-century Europe left this listener longing to linger in Lully's Versailles or Rameau's Paris and perhaps skip the bierkellers of Halle or wherever Telemann wrote his bumptious cantata Don Quichotte. In the first half of the programme, madrigals, canzonettas and arias from over 30 years of Monteverdi's composing life were clumsily squeezed into a semi-staged medley, while the second half of the programme assumed the air of an end-of-term concert in its drive to give each young singer their chance to shine individually. Entertaining as counter-tenor Christophe Dumaux's hyperactive homage to Dominique Visse was, I could see no musical or thematic argument for the inclusion of his aria from Giulio Cesare. Furthermore, such a pick'n'mix approach merely underlined that while Christie is the undisputed master at Lully, Rameau, Handel and Purcell's dramatic music, there are conductors better-versed in German and early Italian repertoire than he.

Despite this, Christie has given each of these young artists an incredible opportunity. Not only have they been exposed, in a highly flattering light, to the sell-out audiences that Les Arts Florissants invariably attract in London, Paris, Frankfurt, Madrid and Lisbon, they have had the experience of working as a team and performing with and listening to one of the world's most exceptionally gifted instrumental ensembles. The current alumni of Le Jardin des Voix still have a lot to learn, some of it vocal, some of it presentational, but in each case, I've no doubt that a career is there to be had, and, in the cases of Staskiewicz and Thompson, a career of potential significance.

The revival of Graham Vick's enduringly spectacular production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg – an opera about a talent competition, least we forget – may seem a less obvious hunting ground for emerging talent than Le Jardin des Voix, but those eager to hear dynamic up-and-coming conductor Mark Wigglesworth in action were richly rewarded.

Wigglesworth's control is ever more impressive and if he bought less of a transformation to the core sound of the Royal Opera House orchestra than he did to that of English National Opera last season, he did at least bring crucial energy to the uneven structure of this opera. I doubt there's a conductor alive who could make me immune to the longueurs of Act III, when Hans Sachs (Jan-Hendrik Rootering) none-too-briefly assumes the personality of his creator, but Wigglesworth came closer to making this section of an otherwise charming – yes, charming – opera less cumbersome. Amanda Roocroft's debut as Eva was equally affecting – sweet of sound and stage presence – while James Rutherford showed himself to be a very fine Wagnerian in the making as Kothner.

a.picard@independent.co.uk

'Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg': Royal Opera House, London WC2 (020 7304 4000), to 2 December