From the first nippy, crisp note of Mozart’s best overture you know that this production is in fine hands. Glyndebourne’s tour orchestra, under Stephanie Childress’s baton supports it beautifully with lovely work from the timpanist getting the hard sticked Enlightenment mood perfectly. In places at the performance I saw, the harpsichord accompanying the recits wasn’t always quite in time with singers, but it’s a minor gripe.

Although this was my first encounter with it, this production – dynamically directed by Michael Grandage and, for this revival, by Ian Rutherford – has had over 500 outings but it still feels glitteringly fresh partly because of Christopher Oram’s grandiloquent but simple sets. We are definitely in Spain with four glorious amber and berry toned Alambra Palace-inspired spaces in the big house where the entire action is set in a single day. And it’s the 1960s so the costumes are quite literally gorgeous with lots of velvet, bright colours and bold patterns.

Soraya Mafi’s Susanna is petite, pert, passionate and totally convincing from the moment she first hugs her fiancé in the room they’re preparing to live in to the final moment in the garden when she and he are united – all those rising fifths to connote forgiveness and reconciliation – in the garden after nearly three hours of plotting and misunderstandings. Her soprano voice is suitably sweet and gently elegant.

Opposite her as Figaro, Alexander Miminoshvili, sings all his set piece numbers (especially in Act 1) with aplomb. His bass voice manages to get the passion, anger, confusion and, often humour very entertainingly. Ida Ranzlov’s Cherubino is stage-commandingly louche – every inch the randy, long haired teenager in denim jacket and butcher boy cap. She ranges vocally from effervescent to miserable and it’s pretty effective.

Nardus Williams is outstanding as the Countess. Her Porgi amor in Act 2 brought a huge round of applause and I was moved by the beauty and poignant timing of Dove sono. And she looks fabulous in her flamboyant silk dressing gown. Of course she’s essentially a tragic figure – a good woman who really doesn’t deserve to be saddled with the Count and we hear all that ambivalence and anguish in Williams’s voice.

George Humphreys has terrific stage presence as the dastardly, authoritarian, sex-obsessed Count. He’s a head taller than anyone else on stage and that is visually very effective. He sings his early numbers with plenty of bass force but, at this particular performance, his voice diminished notably during the show to such an extent that I wondered if there was a medical issue which, maybe, accounted, for the unexplained delay at the start of Act 2.

I was delighted to see and review this highly enjoyable account of what is probably the best known and loved opera in the repertoire. I wonder, though, how many opportunities there will be for thousands of people to enjoy work of this quality in places like Canterbury, Milton Keynes, Norwich and Liverpool in future? Arts Council England has axed the money which supported Glyndebourne Touring, now in its 54th year.

Susan Elkin