Not since Dmitri Tcherniakov’s production of Don Giovanni (BelAir, A/13) have I seen such a wrong-headed account of a Mozart opera. True, I said that Kasper Holten’s production of the same opera (C Major, 12/14) was ‘based on a false, unsustainable premise’, but I went on to recommend it highly. Would that I could do the same here.

To be fair, Holten gets some accomplished acting from his young cast, the sets and costumes are unexceptionable, the conducting and playing excellent, the singing likewise. And the performance starts well. In the Overture, Idomeneus bids farewell to his young son Idamantes as he sets out for Troy. When Act 1 is under way, the adult Idamantes – originally a castrato role – enters wearing what looks like the same yellow stock. Before that, the captive Trojan princess Ilia, feeling guilty at having fallen in love with an enemy, has apostrophised her slain family, the syncopated accompaniment underlying her uneasiness. Electra’s fury at the prospect of losing Idamantes to Ilia, and the recognition scene between father and son, are well handled. During the chorus of rejoicing at Idomeneus’s survival from shipwreck, the king joins the hands of Idamantes and Electra. This is all good stuff.

But now the problems begin. Mozart and his librettist traced the development of the love that Ilia feels for Idamantes by giving her an aria at the start of each act, as she moves from anguish to contentment and, finally, joyful acceptance. Holten claims that ‘the love story does not evoke our empathy’ when Ilia ‘laments her state of being in love in the third act’. She does nothing of the kind; but ‘Zeffiretti lusinghieri’ opens Act 2, followed by the duet with Idamantes, ‘S’io non moro’. In the scene’s true place in Act 3, their bliss is interrupted by the sudden entry of Idomeneus and Electra: he horrified, she furious. Here the lovers leave the stage while the king confers with his confidant Arbaces, then return for Idamantes to sing ‘Non temer, amato bene’, which Mozart wrote for an amateur performance five years later. Idamantes was cast as a tenor, amateur castratos being somewhat hard to find. The notation of the vocal line was in the soprano clef, so we can recognise an ambiguity. But it makes no sense dramatically; still less does the ensuing ‘Se il padre perdei’, the halfway-house aria that properly opens the act after an aria, usually cut, for Arbaces.

This means that Act 3 begins with the quartet ‘Andrò ramingo e solo’ – surely Mozart’s greatest operatic ensemble, the sextet in Figaro not excepted – having lost the accompanied recitative that should precede it. Another absurdity is to have Idamantes on stage when he is supposed to be off slaying the monster that is terrorising the populace. Further cuts include the final arias for father and son: fair enough, as Mozart himself dropped the one and was prepared to do the same for the other.

As I said, the cast is excellent. Valentina Naforniţă is a touching Ilia and Rachel Frenkel brings plenty of ardour to the part of her lover. Irina Lungu rages impressively as the spurned Electra. It’s a nice touch to see the Furies dragging her down to join her brother Orestes in Hades. But to have Idomeneus join her is quite wrong, being contrary to the serene mood of reconciliation as he resigns the throne to his son. Bernard Richter makes a fine king: desperate, defiant, loving. He has the measure of ‘Fuor del mar’ in its original, florid version, but rather spoils things by breaking up the coloratura into short phrases. The Vienna State Opera Orchestra can sound too plush in Mozart: not here, under Tomáš Netopil’s sensitive, unexaggerated conducting.

So, caveat emptor. Older versions worth considering include Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s handsome, traditional production from the New York Met under Levine (DG) and two from Glyndebourne, with a tenor Idamantes: John Cox’s (Arthaus), primarily for the sake of the pioneering Idomeneus of Richard Lewis (but the recording shamefully omits the first half of Act 1); while in Trevor Nunn’s Japanese-inspired production (Warner, 12/04) the cast is led by the wonderful Philip Langridge.