This is getting confusing: the Glyndebourne Festival DVD of Billy Budd (9/11) is now followed by a CD of the same production, made (at least partly) on different dates. Divorced from Michael Grandage’s rather insipid production, it makes a strong entry in the purely audio stakes. The unexpected advantage is that the recording is much better than on the festival’s other recent Britten CDs. Helped perhaps by the acoustic properties of the set – an enveloping ship’s interior – the voices project clearly. We feel as if we are out on deck, yet the balance with the orchestra is very good. With the exception of the scene of the aborted naval battle, where the principals were at the back of the stage, almost every word can be heard in this vividly immediate live recording. The cast stands up well against existing rivals. Jacques Imbrailo makes a marvellously youthful, innocent-sounding Billy Budd and his lyrical singing of Billy’s solo scene before his execution is heart-rending. He is fortunate to have such a sympathetic Captain Vere in John Mark Ainsley, who makes up for a voice on the light side by his understanding for this tortured man of the enlightenment (how true rings the line ‘I have studied men and their ways’). After an uncertain start, Phillip Ens grows into a Claggart of authority and there are appreciable portrayals from Matthew Rose as Mr Flint and Iain Paterson as Mr Redburn. Mark Elder gets first-rate playing from the London Philharmonic Orchestra and directs an often powerful performance, which loses momentum temporarily in Captain Vere’s cabin in Act 1 but returns there for a blistering account of the trial scene in Act 2.

A single recommendation is difficult. Britten’s own recording is the most consistently compelling and has a sturdy cast (Michael Langdon’s Claggart has perhaps been underrated). Hickox’s Chandos set has the best central trio – Langridge, Keenlyside and Tomlinson – but does not quite recreate the tense atmosphere of the opera house. This new Glyndebourne certainly does, running feet, cannon and all.