‘My heart cannot change’, sings the heroine of Gounod’s 1864 opera. Put baldly, that is the fixed premise of this gentle pastoral work. Mireille is a country heiress in Provence who has fallen in love with Vincent, a poor basket-weaver. She is true to him despite the incompatibility of their roots, and the opera aligns Mireille’s Catholic piety with the purity of her romantic love. At the opera’s poignant close, a voice from heaven greets the poor girl and promises her happiness that was unattainable in life.

This DVD reissue of the Opéra National de Paris’s production is partly in memory of Nicolas Joel, who died last year. His 2009 staging of Mireille began his tenure as director of the Paris Opéra and was something of a call to arms – both for more explorations of French opera (and not just the obvious works) and for a more sympathetic and naturalistic theatrical style.

Whether Joel left a lasting legacy on either score is doubtful but this show, which has been skilfully filmed (albeit with some singers either bathed in sweat or possibly dripping make-up by the end), captures a stirring and sometimes startling work. Why has it been overlooked? One reason, as Christophe Ghristi, Joel’s director of dramaturgy, records in a booklet note, was that Gounod’s desire to capture a different side of life in Mireille (opéra vérité?) clashed with his own prima donna, Marie Caroline Miolan-Carvalho, who wanted vocal fireworks in a piece about unshowy people.

So there are clashing gears at times, notably the solo scena for Mireille as she slogs through the Crau desert to reach her beau; the premise of the scene is inherently undramatic and the soprano’s exertions don’t ring true set against the character’s shy, humble nature. Yet there are also many lovely ariosos for Mireille, sung by Inva Mula, as well as duets with her Vincent (Charles Castronovo).

The real jewels of Gounod’s score come with his depiction of Provençal culture: set-piece songs and dances, wonderfully brought to life by conductor Marc Minkowski; a shepherd’s song in Act 4 beautifully piped by the Paris oboist. Joel’s direction, typically, is unobtrusive, relying on the wide Provençal vistas created by Ezio Frigerio’s sets. The attractive costumes are by Franca Squarciapino, although it wasn’t immediately clear to me that Mireille was in a class above her simple Provençal friends.

Mula attacks the testing title-role with spirit and agility, just lacking a lick of tenderness – her tone has reedy moments; as an actress she can fall back on stock gestures – to make us fall for her utterly. The handsome, unhappy Castronovo is in wonderful voice as Vincent, and the two fathers, Alain Vernhes’s Ramon and Nicolas Cavallier’s Ambroise, are ideally cast. There’s a flavourful performance from mezzo Sylvie Brunet as kindly hedge-witch Taven, while Franck Ferrari grapples manfully with the less satisfying role of Vincent’s love rival Ourrias.