This is a restaging of the production by David McVicar that was first seen in 2003, subsequently issued on DVD. The sets and costumes by John Macfarlane are the same, of course, with a mixture of 18th-century and contemporary costumes and a set that splendidly acknowledges the importance of the sun and moon as representations of good and evil. This revival by Thomas Guthrie is a pretty faithful re-creation. As before, there is more spoken dialogue than usual, albeit not enough to restore the original balance between words and music. Monostatos is not depicted as a Moor, and the Papagena joke falls flat because she is young from the start, not disguised as an old crone.

The members of the cast are generally as good as their predecessors. The main difference lies in the conducting. Julia Jones is fleet, to put it mildly, whereas Colin Davis in 2003 gives more weight to the more solemn numbers. It takes him just over three minutes to get through the March that begins Act 2, while Jones clocks up a speedy 2'19". ‘Soll ich dich Teurer nicht mehr sehn?’, the trio for Pamina, Tamino and Sarastro, lasts for 3'44" in Davis’s loving hands; Jones skips through it in 2'30".

Tamino is sung by Mauro Peter, to much better effect than in the sorry production from Salzburg (C Major, 9/19). If his acting is on the stolid side, his singing is never less than graceful. He is less violent than Will Hartmann was for Davis in the scene with the Speaker of the Temple (Darren Jeffery, the last word in dignity). Tamino’s reluctant fellow aspirant, Papageno, is played by Roderick Williams: beautifully sung, with perfect comic timing. It’s a pity that the allegro section of ‘Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen’ is so rushed, and the glockenspiel frustratingly distant. Fellow pedants might jib at his anachronistic riff on ‘Das Wandern’ from Die schöne Müllerin. (On the earlier recording, Simon Keenlyside more appropriately hums ‘Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja’.) Papageno’s comically evil alter ego, Monostatos, although deprived of one of his best lines (‘I’ll seek out the mother, since I can’t have the daughter’), is a gift of a part for Peter Bronder. Mika Kares is rather bland as Sarastro but he has the bottom notes all right.

Siobhan Stagg makes a lovely Pamina, sweet and gentle in her duet with Papageno, believably heartbroken in ‘Ach ich fühl’s’. Sabine Devieilhe looks – and is – too young to be Pamina’s mother, but what a performance! She manages a touch of flirtation in her first aria, and sails through ‘Der Hölle Rache’ with a pianissimo echo effect thrown in. The Three Ladies, invariably in attendance, are excellent, as are the Three Boys and – given a tiresome characterisation – the Papagena.

McVicar’s version lacks the visual charm of Covent Garden’s previous production by August Everding (available in a performance from Munich on DG) but it deserves its longevity. I find some of Jones’s tempos simply too fast – another example is the chorale for the Two Men in Armour – but this spirited performance, with good video direction by Jonathan Haswell, will give a great deal of pleasure. If, on the other hand, your preference is for more gravitas, then Colin Davis – one of the great Mozartians of our time – is your man.