By one of those coincidences surely resulting from a conference held to avoid such clashes, another modern version of Bellini’s psychological opera comes to the small screen a mere month after the one recommended in our March issue. Frustratingly, it is on balance even better than that La Fenice one.

This Stuttgart production by the experienced Wieler/Morabito team is also lightly modernised in period – although the setting by Anna Viebrock (in one of her classically detailed shabby interiors with an occasional distant glimpse of a lake) makes the work feel much less romantic than does the Venetian staging. There Bepi Morassi, despite his modern setting, clung to at least the physical illusion of Bellini and Romani’s ballet-influenced geography and psychology. The Stuttgart team, on the other hand, bluntly portray Amina’s sleepwalking as a mental problem, do not shrink from actually showing the historical phantom mentioned in the libretto (nor her presumed connection with the returning Count Rodolfo) and strongly question the happy ending suggested by music and text. It’s a more directed, more interventionist staging than the Italian one.

Musically we are again in the safe but far from unexciting hands of Gabriele Ferro. Also far from unexciting is the thrilling singing of Macedonian soprano Ana Durlovski, recently seen on DVD as the Queen of the Night in new Magic Flutes from Bregenz and Berlin. As well as fielding a Caruso/Björling-like ability to crescendo on those high peaks, Durlovski is a terrific natural actress in conveying Amina’s emotional plight. Her interpretation here has already won the German Theatre ‘Der Faust’ prize. She is especially well partnered by Enzo Capuano’s Count and Catriona Smith’s well-contrasted, blowsy Lisa. Luciano Botelho’s Elvino certainly sings well enough but this is just not a production which focuses on his relationship with Amina. You could argue that’s a distortion but the opera’s drama and music can certainly take it. Filming and sound recording are both top-class. The choice is clear: for more romantic naturalism, stay with Venice; for a darker ride go to Stuttgart.