All hell broke loose when this staging of Don Giovanni was first unveiled in 2001. Greeted with a combination of critical alarm and public fury, it assured overnight notoriety for its Spanish-born director Calixto Bieito and more than a whiff of infamy still clings to it.
Thanks to Bieito's other productions in London and Edinburgh, his work has since become more familiar and consequently we can now recognise in his Don Giovanni the repetitive trademarks of his style.
The piece has been relocated to a morally bankrupt, classless urban present: there's an emphasis on violence, not always supported by text or score; finally, there's Bieito's relentless denigration of sex, graphically depicted but always disassociated from any idea of love or pleasure.
Even so, the scandal machine still grinds drearily into operation. Shortly before the revival's opening night its conductor, David Parry, denounced the production's first critics as weird and prissy.
Unfortunately, it's the "deep issues" of Mozart's opera that this production singularly fails to address, largely because Bieito rides roughshod over its metaphysics.
The Don's ultimate challenge to morality lies not in his sexuality, but in his insistence on maintaining his integrity in the face of damnation. Bieito ducks this central point.
In his version the Commendatore, far from being killed in the opening scene, returns at the opera's close as an ineffectual, blood-boltered vigilante.
There is no descent to hell. Instead, the Don is ritually slaughtered by his enemies. Bieito's point is that the idea of damnation is irrelevant because we're all in hell already.
There are, however, some exceptional performances. Mark Stone is perfect as the Don - lethally cruel and hinting at shards of insecurity behind the drop-dead-gorgeous facade. Linda Richardson is a shrill, frigid Anna, in marked contrast to Mary Plazas's vulnerable Elvira.
Iain Paterson has to cope with Bieito's view of Leporello as a Real Madrid supporting hooligan, while Barry Banks is the uptight Ottavio. Parry's conducting, meanwhile, is steely, hard driven and unyielding: he seems unable to deal with perhaps the most important of the work's "deep issues," namely its compassion and humanity.
· In rep until November 5. Box office: 020-7632 8300.
