It seems perverse to be describing a new work by a 77-year-old as demonstrating potential fulfilled, but Philip Glass’s second crack at Kafka improves upon his undercooked version of In the Penal Colony in every respect.

For Music Theatre Wales the creation of The Trial is a significant achievement, not least because of its rare example of text, music and staging all pulling the same way. Michael McCarthy’s direction is simple yet resourceful, and, crucially, it allows Christopher Hampton’s neatly adapted libretto to absorb the weightier philosophical issues on its own terms.

Retaining the book’s darkly surreal comic tone (this world really isn’t so different to Carroll’s Wonderland), the performances from the eight-strong cast were terrific – Johnny Herford’s Josef K affectingly forlorn in the face of inevitable oblivion and Nicholas Folwell’s Priest offering up the poignant ‘Before the Law’ parable with fervent clarity.

Colony wasn’t terrible, but the austerity of the string quintet accompaniment remorselessly smothered any dramatic momentum. In The Trial the ensemble has been expanded to a Britten-esque group of 12, a widening of the sonic palette that has resulted in the composer’s strongest operatic score in decades.

The loops and whorls of broken chords are all present and correct, but the harmonic movement and timbral shading expands and contracts with each unexpected and unexplainable interaction on stage, and the muscular, functional decisiveness of much of the vocal writing suggests an appropriate nod towards the Eisler/Brecht catalogue. It’s superb. The future’s bright for the young Glass lad.