War and Peace was the Paris Opéra’s choice for a Millennium production, and they did it proud. Francesca Zambello elicits emotionally truthful performances from her strong team of mainly Russian soloists, with Nathan Gunn, as Andrei, and Robert Brubaker looking and sounding by no means out of place. Olga Guryakova is outstanding as Natasha – plausible both as a 15-year-old awakening to love and as a comforter to her dying beloved on the battlefield. Anatoli Kotcherga is in resplendent voice as the military hero Kutuzov, and Vassily Gerello is as commanding a Napoleon as he was nine years previously at the Kirov. Only the gurgly Obraztsova as Maria Akhrossimova disappoints. Though scarcely less fine vocally, Gergiev’s soloists, as directed on VHS by Graham Vick, are more inclined to standard stagey posturings.

Gary Bertini and his Paris orchestra might be expected to fall short of their Russian counterparts in terms of passion and idiomatic understanding. But not a bit of it. They are fully engaged from first note to last, and ensemble is if anything tighter. The chorus, certainly as recorded here, sounds a fraction less integrated, but in terms of acting they are greatly superior.

John Macfarlane’s designs are almost as minimalist as Timothy O’Brien’s for the Kirov, but they more effectively point up the contrast between the ‘Peace’ scenes (all neo-classical straight lines and simplicity) and ‘War’ (all jagged, chaotic edges, with an especially effective backcloth to suggest Moscow in flames). Choreography and costumes are superb, and all in all I would not prefer the Kirov alternative even if it is reissued in DVD format.

The two discs leave room for an 80-minute documentary on the background to the performance. Little or nothing is said about the work itself, but the onstage and backstage scenes are among the most interesting I have seen: a model, in fact, for opera on DVD.