This production, filmed at the Palais Garnier in September 2009, marked a return to traditional values. The new director of the Opéra National de Paris, Nicolas Joel, wanted a clean break from the controversial reign of his predecessor and chose to open his first season with Gounod’s Mireille, getting its first ever performances at the Opéra and in a production of his own that put the emphasis on traditional realism.

The live DVD recording is very well filmed – an obvious first choice for a collector, even if there were many alternatives, which there aren’t. The pastoral landscape of Provence, so important to Gounod as he composed this opera, is beautifully evoked. For Act 1 Joel and his designer, the veteran Ezio Frigerio, show us a period picture of country girls in straw hats and pinafores gambolling through the fields just before the harvest. The scene is so realistic that one half-wonders if a real cornfield was dug up and planted on the Palais Garnier stage. Later settings are sparer in style – the cornfield persists for Act 2 instead of a change of scene to the amphitheatre at Arles and the Crau desert is simply a huge burning sun on the backdrop – but everything feels true to the opera’s pastoral spirit.

The musical performance is equally fine. Inva Mula, a nicely lyrical Mireille, rises to the challenge of a role as taxing as Marguerite in Faust with only occasional signs of strain, notably in the brilliant showpiece ending to her Act 2 aria which Gounod was elbowed into adding before the premiere. Charles Castronovo looks ideal as her rustic lover, Vincent, and sings with a winning blend of poetry and ardour. Their respective fathers, played by Alain Vernhes and Nicolas Cavallier, become rather stiff stereotypes but Franck Ferrari makes a credibly jealous rival out of Ourrias. Marc Minkowski conducts the five-act version of the opera with his customary light touch and no embarrassment about indulging Gounod when he is at his most sentimental. It seems unlikely we will find the “simplicity and delicacy” of Mireille – Joel’s words – more faithfully represented than this.