Donizetti’s Don Pasquale might well be textbook opera buffa, with stock characters, improbable plot and strophic songs.

That the opening night at Glyndebourne – a revival of Mariame Clement’s 2011 touring company production – is most definitely not is due to the wit of the staging, the charm of the principals, the drama of the acting and Danielle de Niese.

The soprano sings that she is “unpredictable, quick and vivacious” with “a thousand ways to excite”, not that the audience needs telling. We are all in thrall to such a magnificent voice, a huge clear, true and ringing instrument, supple as silk and sturdy as timber, belonging to a dramatic actress with the range and emotion of a Callas.

Equally splendid was Alessandro Corbelli whose comic bass invested poor Pasquale with dignity, pathos and humour.

The chorus operated as a Restoration commentary, breathtakingly painted, garbed and fanned in white.

Enea Scala stood in at short notice for Alek Shrader as the lover, sighing to his mistress’s eyebrow, and very well he did it too.

Enrique Mazzola conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra with a proper Italian panache and everybody lived happily ever after.