There are opera purists who wince at the thought of modern directors taking an established favourite and dreaming up a radical new staging. So when director Katharina Thoma reworked Strauss’s depiction of the clash between low and high art, there were probably some raised eyebrows.

But Thoma’s staging is a perfect example of how an established classic can be looked at afresh. It is still set in a private house (very like Glyndebourne itself) but the prologue is brought to end by a bombing raid and instead of a desert island, the opera is set in the same house, transformed into a nursing home for those dealing with the traumas of war.

In this world, the nymphs comforting Ariadne are three nurses, the commedia dell’arte troupe are an ENSA party and Bacchus is a wounded fighter pilot.

If Thoma brings a freshness to the piece, she’s aided by the singing, particularly from Kate Lindsey’s Composer, visibly disoriented by his encounter with Laura Claycomb’s strikingly sexual Zerbinetta.

Soile Isokoski brings poignancy to the lovelorn Ariadne particularly in the closing scene with Sergey Skorokhodov’s Bacchus, although Skorokhodov himself seemed decidedly below par.

Meanwhile, Vladimir Jurowski, in his last Glyndebourne season, brings some wonderful playing from a stripped-down London Philharmonic.