Don Giovanni, opera review: Mozart comes to Mexico in this rebooted stunner

Mozart's Don Giovanni is one of opera’s most contradictory characters, a sexual predator on a vast scale yet also a proto-revolutionary, prepared to challenge the social order while giving voice to some exquisite music.

It’s asking a lot of a student singer to capture the complexities while also responding to the musical challenges that Mozart sets him; but then, it’s the Royal Academy of Music’s duty to test its students.

The Academy fields alternating casts for its run of Christopher Cowell’s new production. On opening night, every singer emerged with credit, as did the orchestra under Gareth Hancock’s tactful but energetic direction.

Cowell relocates the action to 19th-century Mexico, which allows for some picturesque, occasionally macabre “Day of the Dead” details, while remaining essentially true to the plot. Hackney’s Round Chapel plays its part, its Victorian stylings providing eerie atmosphere and a welcoming acoustic that captures the lustre of the young voices.

Cowell allows the opening sex act, usually placed offstage, to play in full view, clearly showing Donna Anna as a willing participant in her seduction by Giovanni. At first, Nicholas Mogg’s cleanly sung Giovanni seems too nice, but as the opera progresses, a darker character emerges, becoming diabolical, almost demented.

Michael Mofidian plays Leporello as a charming dolt, but it’s the women who come out on top: Ilona Revolskaya flirty and flighty as Zerlina, Emilie Cavallo’s Elvira something more complex than a hysterical dupe, Carrie-Ann Williams’s Anna a woman on the edge. This is a student production for which absolutely no allowances need to be made.

Until Saturday (020 8986 0029, roundchapel.org)