The Don Ottavio, Piotr Beczala, sings both of his arias uncommonly well, the first with apt ornamentation at the reprise, the second with fine command especially of the held note and run on the word “cercate”. Simon Keenlyside sings a neat, slightly underpowered Giovanni. Malin Hartelius, as Elvira, sings with fresh, appealing tone and deals with most of the technical difficulties as a well trained singer should. Martina Janková brings an attractively tight vibrato to her youthful-sounding Zerlina. The orchestra play well under their too often listless conductor Franz Welser-Möst.

That is the best that can be said on the musical side in favour of this as a performance worth preserving in one form or another. But this is a DVD, and on the visual side I find next to nothing. The production has many of the faults of the modern schools. It falsifies the setting in time, place and character, gaining nothing of value and forfeiting credibility. With one exception (Elvira's “Mi tradì”) it introduces constant visual distractions during solos. It resorts to juvenile salaciousness (such as removal of shirts and frocks). It gives life to silly ideas which should have been strangled at birth (for example, placing the men of the chorus in rows with their backs to us and nothing to do in the opening scene of Act 2) And it's hard work to watch, because everybody is so obviously working desperately to make a success of a production that has the kiss of death over it. And to revert to the musical element in a last gasp of disaffection, the Donna Anna is a disaster. She is Eva Mei, whose voice never had the nobility for this part and who now is heard with vibrations loosened to an extent that makes it hard to avoid the dreaded word “wobble”.