Some admirers regard Billy Budd as Britten's greatest opera, the finest fusion of his musical and dramatic crafts. It's certainly the bleakest and least forgiving, and the most powerful exploration of his constant obsession with the corruption, and in this case destruction, of innocence. But whether it's finer than either Peter Grimes or The Turn of the Screw is debatable.

The great virtue of a concert performance, especially one as consummately prepared and delivered as this, with Richard Hickox conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, is that it gives the audience the chance to focus on the text (by E M Forster and Eric Crozier, based upon Melville's novella) and the music; the chance to make up their own minds without any interventions from the stage.

There was an element of theatricality about this presentation - entrances and exits for the protagonists, essential gestures and confrontations; and basic costuming. It was quietly effective, never distracting; the impact of the music, and the import of most of the words, was utterly direct.

Hickox ensured that all the drama was wrung from the score; the opening of the first act, bringing the claustrophobic world of HMS Indomitable to life, bustled with energy; the abortive engagement with the French navy, showing the military machine cranking into action, had brilliant presence.

Having the men of the LSO choir thundering out Britten's sailors' choruses heightened the intensity even more. The all-British cast was led by Simon Keenlyside's infinitely touching portrayal of Billy himself, heart-stopping in his farewell to life, and Philip Langridge's racked, self-reproaching Captain Vere. For all the infelicities in the libretto Britten's nearest approach to a true verismo opera was revealed with a tragic grandeur all its own.

A recording of the performance will be broadcast at 6.30 on Radio 3 tonight

***** Unmissable **** Recommended *** Enjoyable ** Mediocre * Terrible