The annual autumn visit to our region of the Glyndebourne Tour sent Oxford opera audiences, which used to welcome the company on ‘home ground’ at the New Theatre, on the now familiar hour’s drive north-east to Milton Keynes. We were rewarded there last week with a revival of the 2006 Glyndebourne production of Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw and new productions, recast from this summer’s festival, of La finta giardiniera, from the pen of the 18-year- old Mozart, and La Traviata, Verdi’s rare excursion into a contemporary world, far from public events.

Opting for the last, as the diary necessitated, this reviewer found a ‘Trav’ of engaging intimacy and heartbreaking sadness. The familiar tragic tale was compellingly presented under director Tom Cairns, while conductor David Afkham inspired his vocal and orchestral forces for a richly rewarding interpretation of the score.

Mr Cairns made a touching image of Violetta (Irina Dubrovskaya), alone in her bed, a major theme of the production. We found her there as the curtain rose — a reminder that she is already seriously ill, before the vision widened to encompass the scenes of frivolity in her flat during which her and Alfredo’s (Zach Borichevksy) mutual love was expressed in superb singing.

The bed image returned to begin act II in which the couple’s rural idyll ends when Alfredo’s father Germont (Evez Abdulla) urges her to leave him to safeguard the family honour and the marriageability of his sister. The shattering episode that follows, in which the enraged Alfredo casts his gambling winnings in Violetta’s face, was as well-managed as I have seen it.

Curiously, in the closing deathbed scene, the actual bed was dispensed with, as the heroine, triumphant in death (“Oh joy!”), crumpled suddenly to the floor.