I am sitting in a suburban cinema about five miles from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden watching a screening of the opera which is right now playing on the stage of that revered venue.

It is an outstanding production of a great opera with a dream cast and I’ll tell you more about it in a moment, right now I want to tell you about the director of this film, Matt Woodward. He’s top of my bill because he has done such a great job of taking this opera from stage to screen. It’s not long since I was musing on how particularly difficult it is to satisfactorily film an opera, Woodward however proves it is possible.

Shots move seamlessly from close-up (with no distracting sights of tonsils) to those encompassing the whole stage, all seeming to reflect precisely what you want and need to see at that moment – brilliant.

And so to what you should know about this film of “the world’s most popular opera”.

What was filmed live at the Royal Opera House on February 4 this year was a revival of Richard Eyre’s 1994 production. A...