The filming of each act begins annoyingly with a Star Wars storyline pan-in on the words “Tristan und Isolde”, “Act 2” etc, using up the preludes. After that, however, comes a performance realised to Glyndebourne’s highest standards – the chorus and stage brass are Bayreuth-level, the casting immaculate (they can all really sing these parts) and B∆lohlávek’s conducting balanced with a Goodall-like attention to the filigree detail of Wagner’s new-wave scoring.

Old-style analyses of the music used to talk about the “glance” motif. Lehnhoff’s staging deploys a series of heartbreaking glances: Stemme’s Isolde when Karnéus’s Brangäne tells her she’s taken the love draught, Stemme again when Tristan arrives in Act 2, Pape’s Marke as he sees the lovers together and, at Brokeback Mountain-level, Skovhus’s Kurwenal as he cradles Gambill’s Tristan then breaks away, half in fear of his lord’s death, half in fear of his feelings for him. In fact, has a Tristan ever been so deeply loved by his lady and squire as here, or felt so wretched at betraying his king? And is Skovhus actually the greatest Kurwenal yet recorded?

Roland Aeschlimann provides a geometrically attractive whorl of a standing set, concentric wooden circles telescoping towards a constantly varied horizon: a ship, a spaceship, everywhere, nowhere – perfect. The lighting (Robin Carter and Aeschlimann) has a genuine physical presence and seems to reinvent the colour blue. At the point of Isolde’s almost belated arrival in Act 3, a surreal, Ingmar Bergman-like atmosphere permeates events: she arrives from behind on high as a figure of death and wraps him in a black cloak, while Skovhus’s poignant Kurwenal gets a non-realistic, Brechtian centre-stage for his fights and death.

There are a lot of compelling Tristan DVDs on the market: Boulez/Wieland Wagner; Mehta/Konwitschny (Arthaus, 12/00); de Billy/Kirchner (Opus Arte); Jordan/Py (Bel Air); and Barenboim/Ponnelle (DG). Coming fast up the inside are Barenboim/Heiner Müller – a modern, abstract less-is-more version – and Barenboim/Chereau/La Scala – almost more emotional than this Glyndebourne set. Oh dear!