Let us first praise conductor and orchestra. Ticciati’s Hänsel is at a completely other remove from the pseudo-Wagnerian Siegfried-and-Fafner-have-a-bumpy-day-in-the-woods-with-the-kids approach now mostly favoured in larger opera houses. He is all light and shade, Rudolf Kempe-like in his unerring placement of really loud climaxes – try the Dream Pantomime or the approach to the Witch’s house in Act 3 – while his forest vistas are more Arnold Bax than Parsifal. As for the playing, it’s hard to think of a time on disc since the Philharmonia for Karajan and Legge in June 1953 (EMI) that orchestral soloists have enjoyed themselves so much, or been recorded so lovingly.

So far, so very good, and the cast continues the upward curve, with Coote moulding her weightier voice well into, and alongside, Teuscher’s gentler tones, Dazeley kicking up a characterful storm as Dad (and, in keeping with the overall approach, he’s a working broom-maker, not Wotan just out of the pub), and the woodland alarm-clocks Falk Winland and Erraught beautiful and unmannered.

The (slight) catch comes – on disc as opposed to on stage – with the Witch. Yes, I know Ronald Dowd was unforgettable, as are Graham Clark and others for WNO’s Richard Jones production, but I don’t ‘get’ tenor Witches. It always seems like a camp musician’s in-joke. And, at least as recorded here, the more-than-able Ablinger-Sperrhacke only makes much of an impact when he’s screaming or parlando-ing. I want a woman!

But do not despair – that’s maybe just my problem. At the moment I champion this new set alongside the old Karajan, the EMI Cluytens (if you can find it), the English-language Sadlers Wells Bernardi (ditto) and orchestral suites from Kempe (Testament) and Klemperer (EMI) as the most stimulating journeys into Adelheid Wette’s psychotic fairyland.