Three years after its television showing this highly-praised film of Owen Wingrave returns as part of a generously filled DVD release. Britten’s penultimate opera was planned to be equally effective on television or in the opera house, but in the early days it was its first stage production at Covent Garden that made the bigger impact, largely thanks to Britten’s long experience in writing for the theatre. Now this film version – imaginatively directed by Margaret Williams and tautly conducted by Kent Nagano – helps to swing the balance the other way.

There is almost nothing stagey about the opera here. The camera roams freely indoors and out, using cleverly executed angles to follow around members of the fearsome Wingrave family at their ancestral home and throwing in flashbacks and voice-overs wherever they might be apposite – much as one might expect of an adaptation of a literary classic. In fact, the period has been updated to the 1950s, which necessitates some minor changes to Myfanwy Piper’s libretto (no need to escort the ladies to their bedchambers by candlelight any more) but that is a small price to pay for this handsome version, which in all other respects stays close to Britten’s intentions.

Gerald Finley is a tower of strength as Owen Wingrave, completely believable as the sturdy but sensitive scion of an upper-crust family. Though the other singers do not generally match their eminent predecessors in the original BBC2 production, they are well-cast and play expertly as a team to the camera. The opera feels as effective here as it has ever done.

The ‘special feature’ on the disc is a major bonus. Teresa Griffiths’ three-part biographical film, Benjamin Britten: The Hidden Heart, lasts as long as the opera and is potentially of significant interest to the same audience. It focuses on three major works – Peter Grimes, the War Requiem and Death in Venice – and while its message is somewhat diffuse and the editorial style jumps irritatingly from image to image as if afraid to let the camera come to rest, it does include a wealth of fleeting extracts showing Britten and Pears in performance. Those alone are enough to make it a desirable collector’s item.