I’ve got so much to post about, and will catch up soon, but I simply had to come back to rave about Sunset Boulevard. I’ve never been one to wait for the official reviews to come out (and have been raked over the coals for it) but I did want to wait this time, just to confirm that my adoration of this was not misplaced or due to teenage infatuation.

There was so much that could have gone wrong. Glenn Close returning to the role after so many years. A show that was critically praised, but never made any money. And above all, staging at the troubled ENO, which lost its music director Mark Wigglesworth so recently that he still appeared in the programme.

I adored the cast recording of this that appeared in the early 1990s, but never saw a performance. Some of the nuances escaped me at the time (why on earth did they want Norma’s car?) but the naked emotion, lush orchestration and some of Lloyd Webber’s most beautiful melodies were catnip to a teenager with a dramatic inner life (and an exterior life sadly lacking in drama, or so I thought at the time).

This limited-run production was an absolute revelation. Glenn Close was a superlative Norma Desmond, the delusional, ageing Hollywood star. She has never been the greatest singer in the world, but it mattered not a jot. She sang well and truly in her most comfortable range, and the slight shakiness of the top notes worked well with her characterisation of a woman losing her grip on reality. Her acting was astonishing, as she made us feel the imperious quality of a true star one minute, and crumbled into sad old age the next. It was an amazing performance and she held us in her grip the entire time. By the end of “With One Look” we were hers, and “As If We Never Said Goodbye” was an utter triumph.

Michael Xavier was very good as Joe Gillis, the young writer who becomes tragically enmeshed in Norma’s orbit. He was perhaps lacking in edge, as you never really saw the requisite dark side. But his singing was excellent, particularly the titular “Sunset Boulevard,” and his “Too Much in Love to Care” with Siobhan Dillon’s Betty was very affecting. Dillon sang very beautifully and brought sympathy to a fairly by-the-numbers ingenue part, and for that deserves great praise.

But for me, the two stars (saving Miss Close’s divine presence, of course) were Fred Johanson as Max von Mayerling, and the ENO’s orchestra. Johanson’s beautiful bass and slightly wooden (but entirely appropriate) acting raised the part of Max von Mayerling, Norma’s butler and protector, to an entirely new level. And ENO’s orchestra brought Webber’s most beautiful music to life with a display of superlative playing. It was as if they were showing us what they could do in the face of such internal difficulties, and what they could do was very good indeed.

A couple of niggles – why on earth was it necessary to have a dancer, representing young Norma, flitting about during the most emotionally sensitive scenes? She was at best unnecessary, and at worst a distraction. And whilst it was clever to use the orchestra pit as Norma’s swimming pool, the object displayed within it at the beginning was particularly unrealistic.

But these are minor quibbles. Overall, it was a beautifully put together revival of one of Lloyd Webber’s most lush and romantic scores, affectingly acted by a great talent and cleverly and well staged. I have never seen a London audience leap to its feet with such abandon, but I completely understand why they did. A triumph.