At the end of the evening a presentation was made to the conductor, Charles Mackerras. It was awarded for his long service to the company – Mackerras served as music director of English National Opera in the 1970s – but might as well have been given for the vigorous performance he had just conducted, little short of astonishing for a man who will be 84 in a couple of weeks.

To the edge: Rebecca Evans

Mackerras worked on The Turn of the Screw with Benjamin Britten, its composer, around the time of the opera’s premiere in 1954. He has not conducted it in London for 50 years, but this performance was as fresh as if he had turned the clock back half a century. In the scenes where Britten screws up the intensity, Mackerras responded by ratcheting up the speeds to the point where the singers and the 12 valiant soloists from ENO’s orchestra were hanging on to his coat-tails.

David McVicar’s production, which hails from St Petersburg, was first seen in 2007 and is returning for its first revival. The empty stage misses the suffocating atmosphere of the haunted house at Bly, but odd pieces of furniture littered about act like stray memories in a deranged mind as it reflects on the story, and McVicar is merciless at peeling away layers of the troubled subconscious of each character locked up there.

The cast remains much the same as two years ago. Rebecca Evans sings the Governess with much beauty and moderately clear words. McVicar pushes her mental disintegration further than usual – is it to madness or depravity? – and the scene where she collapses with a cacophony of church bells ringing in her mind takes her right to the edge.

Among the other roles, Ann Murray’s brilliantly detailed Mrs Grose is outstanding. Michael Colvin’s singing sounds nasal during the Prologue, but his predatory Quint is convincing, and Cheryl Barker makes a sturdy Miss Jessel. Charlie Manton is vivid in the role of the boy Miles, here as much pursuer as pursued, and Nazan Fikret’s Flora joins him in some unholy children’s games, including horse-whipping and baby-burying. So much is suggested, so much left uncertain. McVicar has sensibly left Henry James’s ghost story as the mystery it was meant to be.