Getty gives us every trademark sound from the Universal and Hammer movie handbook – tremolando strings, percussion glissandi and hammered sforzando chords.

The [Welsh National Opera] orchestra, under Lawrence Foster, give it everything. Getty’s setting consists entirely of sung speech except when Poe (ardent tenor Jason Bridges) recalls his romantic feelings for Madeline Usher, and we get a hint of a Bernstein-like aria....

Getty’s Roderick (the enjoyably hammy Benjamin Bevan) is part buffoon part fruitcake. Anna Gorbachyova as Madeline has little to do but the part is expressively danced by Joanna Jeffries in Getty’s version.