We’ve cursed modern producers and their productions often enough, but credit where it is due, and here is a delight. The conductor, working with his own edition of the opera, is Alberto Zedda, and that of itself is some guarantee. But when the director and designer, Dario Fo, takes the last and climatic bow, he deserves every cheer he gets.

The performance was filmed at the Netherlands Opera in 1991, but the production dates back to 1987 and was Fo’s first for the operatic stage. Employing a group of mime artists, he places the action in a commedia dell’arte setting and opens with a brilliant pantomime-accompaniment to the overture. The ideas match the music, and the visual style suits the elegance of Zedda’s orchestral players. Throughout the opening solos, chorus and duet, a delightful ingenuity of movement plays along with the singers, who themselves have the youth and elasticity of voice, limb and spirit to cope with the thousand-and-one tasks thrown at them simultaneously. And, wonderful to relate, there is no (or very little) sense of distraction or overloading; just a feast of melody, wit and energy.

The singer who impresses most is Robert Croft, the tenor. One wonders at first whether vocal finesse will be regarded as a dispensable luxury among so much visual busy-ness; but no, his tone maintains its clear line, his scales are fluent and evenly articulated, and in the second serenade, ‘Se il mio nome’, he even decorates the second verse, with both panache and delicacy. The Figaro, another American, David Malis, has the personality and the bright high notes. Jennifer Larmore’s Rosina, better when seen than merely heard, is strong-voiced and technically accomplished if a little raw in the upper register. Renato Capecchi is a memorable Bartolo, distinct from the potbellied bumbler of convention. The departure from tradition over Don Basilio is less happy, and ideally Simone Alaimo could do with more of the full fruity bass in his timbre.

Of the production in general, it is possible that in the theatre it might be found too restless, but I wouldn’t think so. Expertly filmed, it is just about the most enjoyable comic opera production to have come my way on DVD.