Don Giovanni, Glyndebourne Festival Opera review ★★★★★

One of the many baffling and destructive acts of Arts Council England in January's sweeping funding cuts was to strip out Glyndebourne Touring Opera. GTO took first-rate productions to a string of towns and cities outside London, and like so many of the pointless axings, scrapping the money hits artists as well as audiences.

In Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne Festival Opera this summer – the Sussex-based main season, as opposed to the now defunct autumn tour – both the title role in Mozart's opera and the lover most loyal to this libertine are sung by artists who rose up through the touring programme.

As Don Giovanni, the Spanish lord with more than 2,000 notches on the bedpost, Moldovan baritone Andrey Zhilikhovsky has sung Donizetti and Rossini principal roles on the tour. Now he is top of the bill in the prestigious festival.Similarly, Armenian-born soprano Ruzan Mantashyan, who has sung Richard Strauss on the tour, is now squaring up to the licentious Spanish lord as Donna Elvira.

Soprano Ruzan Mantashyan sings jilted but loyal Donna Elvira. Photo: Monika Rittershaus

In a cast whose youth makes sense of the sex-driven fable, these eye-catching rising artists are joined by other fresh faces, including the very impressive Royal Opera-trained bass Michael Mofidian as bridegroom Masetta, and the radiant Victoria Randem as his bride, snatched by Don Giovanni as their hen and stag parties combine.

For we are not in 18th-century Seville, in Mariame Clément’s new production, but in that city more or less today; and not on the don’s estate, but in a dreary hotel, with snakes and ladders stairs and landings. This concept fails on several levels. The seducer is no longer partying on his own terms, and taking advantage of his droit de seigneur. We’ve all stayed at nightmare hotels, but even they have staff, and other guests who, on hearing a din, throw open their doors and ask if you know what time it is.

Designer Julia Hansen must have stayed in some hideous places to have come up with her green and brown Fawlty Towers. The hen party’s frilly pink outfits have a horribly authentic ring, and Don Giovanni’s final dinner is a giant cake of unrivalled nastiness.

Victoria Randem and Michael Mofidian are likeable Zerlina and Masetto. Photo: Monika Rittershaus

So far, so decadent, but vital plot elements are sacrificed. The all-important moment when Donna Anna’s murdered father speaks from beyond the grave is lost somewhere among the hotel’s room-keys pigeon-holes. Heaven help anyone seeing this opera for the first time.

Fortunately, Mozart’s score is pretty indestructible, and the ever reliable Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is in the pit, Evan Rogister making his Glyndebourne conducting debut, but with tentative tempi and a loose relationship between pit and stage. There isn't that sense of an unstoppable ride from earthly pleasures to eternal damnation, which is what the opera is essentially about.

The most exciting musicianship of the evening comes from fortepiano continuo player Matthew Fletcher. His keyboard nudge, asides and exclamations create an extra, wonderfully witty, character, egging on the rest.

Abused Donna Anna is sung by soprano Venera Gimadieva. Photo: Monika Rittershaus

There is lovely singing and characterisation too from Ukrainian tenor Oleksiy Palchykov, making his Glyndebourne debut as Don Ottavio, Donna Anna’s protective lover, often portrayed as a sap, but here muscular and proactive.

As Leporello, Don Giovanni’s hapless man servant, Russian-born baritone Mikhail Timoshenko, sings flawlessly. Relieved of his Groucho Marx specs and moustache, he will sing hard-up painter Marcello in Puccini’s La Bohème in the new year, at the Royal Opera House. Ruzan Mantashyan will be there too, singing the leading female role of Mimì, and Zhilikhovsky has future ROH dates in his diary. This is how the opera vine flourishes, and you snip away at it at your peril, as ACE should know.

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Don Giovanni is sung in Italian with English surtitles. Further performances are on 31 May; 3, 6, 6, 14, 17, 21, 24, 27 June; 2, 8, 10, 13, 15 July