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Swirling motifs and melodies played in support of the great act one love duet are tackled brilliantly by Gardner, leading to total immer­sion into the magical world of Puccini’s music. So it proceeds through the opera, the succession of great arias, duets and trios backed and driven by magnificent playing.

The new production is directed by Catherine Malfitano, herself a long-experienced Tosca. Eschewing innovation, she goes for a conven­tional staging in 1800 Rome as specified by Puccini. You get the interior the Sant’ Andrea Church in the first act and Scarpia’s apartment in the second. But the third act disappoints  with a set resembling   the inside of a castle 

tower laid on its side.

A strong feature of the Malfitano production is the sense of menace from the hurrying and scurrying of Scarpia’s agents as the orchestra plays the great three-chord motif denoting  the sinister, vindictive police chief.
 

Julian Gavin makes for a strong Cavaradossi, Tosca’s  doomed lover, singing his early “Recondita armonia” with great panache.

Amanda Echalaz lives up to great expectations as the new Tosca we’ve been waiting for, a feisty strong-willed diva rather than the submissive, supine singer usual in traditional portrayals.

Anthony Michaels-Moore sings well as the Scarpia but seems to be just too nice to be the embodiment of evil intent on having his manly way.

The great Scarpia/ Tosca battle of wills in the second act ends with an excellent knife murder of the police chief by the distraught diva intent on protecting her person. But Tosca’s love-suicide on discovery of her lover’s execution fails to live up to rest of the stunning production.

• Tosca, ENO, Coliseum, St Martin’s Lane, WC2, 0871 911 0200. Ten performances until July 10,