It was about halfway through Act One of Longborough’s new production of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale that it struck me: when did I last actually see operatic characters in 18th century dress? Yes, Lara Booth’s costumes looked beautiful, but as Susanna Hurrell’s Norina, raising her eyebrows, chucked her book over her shoulder with a playful shrug, no-one could claim that these characters were unrealistic – or that the audience felt remote from them.

You don’t have to be a Zeffirelli-fixated Luddite to feel that opera directors’ habit of updating everything they touch has become a reflex action. The 18th century sections of this production worked gloriously; which is why director Alan Privett’s decision to frame them within a 1930s film studio felt so unnecessary – and, as Act Three spun towards its conclusion, actively distracting.

That was the production’s one really intractable error. The performance itself took a little while to come into focus, though by Act Two the orchestra under Thomas Blunt was fizzing along smartly and the relationship between Gary Griffiths’ genial Malatesta and Richard Mosley-Evans (a rumpled teddy-bear of a Pasquale, deputising for an unavailable David Stout) was generating real comedy, and – vocally – putting Jesus Alvarez’ reedy Ernesto rather in the shade.

But if there was a single point at which the evening ignited it was Hurrell’s first appearance as Norina. With a voice that soared over ever obstacle Donizetti threw it, and eye-flashing spirit coupled with wonderfully sensitive and detailed acting, we’ve rarely seen an opera buffa heroine brought so completely and joyously to life. When Mosley-Evans’ Pasquale reeled, broken, from her slap, the pain that flashed briefly across her face and flickered like a shadow across her voice made you feel, for a moment, that you were watching Mozart. And it doesn’t get better than that.