When Michael Grandage’s Billy Budd first appeared in 2010 it was widely praised for the power of its physical detail.

The awesome man o’war is of course all still there – every rope, every hook, every stifling timber. But it’s the subtle details of musical light and shade that sail this revival on beyond the scope even of its original production.

Glyndebourne celebrates Benjamin Britten’s centenary with the opera that most boldly states all the composer’s trademark iconography with an almost unbearable uncertainty at its heart.

From quiet prayer to battle-ready bombast, the superb chorus wield a rare emotional power, while the score’s lushest and most redemptive chords hover questioningly on a breathtaking split-second delay from Andrew Davies’ down beat.

“I have seen the miracle of goodness and I am afraid,” sings Captain Vere as, in a ship of press-ganged men, morality shivers along a bayonet. Mark Padmore carries the authority and anguish of captaincy perfectly, but it’s the disarming intimacy of his voice which asks more than we dare to, in the end, about the human condition.

Jacques Imbrailo’s Billy is – again – heart-stoppingly gorgeous, and Brindley Sherratt plumbs the depths of unfathomable evil as Claggart.