This is such an enjoyable production of Mozart’s Turkish opera that it seems churlish to draw attention to its defects. So first of all, three cheers for David McVicar, who by including most of the dialogue has restored the proper balance between speech and music. This has the remarkable effect of throwing the spotlight on to the usually almost marginal character of Pasha Selim, who is in love with his prisoner Konstanze but not given any music to sing. Quite rightly, McVicar reminds us that Selim is no Turk but a Spaniard who has converted to Islam. Despite this, he remains an Enlightenment figure who shows great forbearance by releasing his captives (and who has a wind band to play Mozart’s B flat Serenade, a nice touch). But instead of seeking out a younger version of, say, Klaus Maria Brandauer, McVicar casts a piratical French actor (why?) whom he has stripping to the waist during ‘Martern aller Arten’. Just as improbable, Konstanze is clearly attracted to the Pasha, frequently pawing him, despite there being no justification for this in the music. Other irritations include the presence on stage of characters who should have exited, or not been there at all, and too much shouting when the captives are trying to escape at dead of night.

Enough! The visual aspect is gorgeous, Vicki Mortimer’s set, with its many scene changes, evoking a romantic view of the Orient: latticed screens, a garden with potted plants, a forbidding wall with a studded gate. Her costumes, Ottoman or Western, are of a comparably stylish aptness. In the pit, Robin Ticciati conducts the heroes of the OAE in a fleet account of the score that offsets some of the over-long pauses in the dialogue. In the accompanied recitatives a fortepiano can be heard delicately tinkling away.

Edgaras Montvidas acts rather better than he sings. His Belmonte is ardent, impatient and, at the end, utterly chastened. McVicar sensibly follows today’s customary placing of ‘Wenn der Freude Tränen fliessen’ before rather than after the lovers are reunited – a surprising miscalculation on Mozart’s part, though there is a link between dialogue and aria – but Montvidas is lacking in tenderness; ‘Ich baue ganz’, too, is on the heavy side. As his beloved Konstanze, on the other hand, Sally Matthews sings superbly: an anguished ‘Traurigkeit’ and, despite having to veer between self-defence and tenderness, a heroic ‘Martern aller Arten’.

The servant couple are very well characterised. Brenden Gunnell is a pipe-smoking Pedrillo, clearly proud of his gardening. His ‘who dares, wins’ aria, ‘Frisch zum Kampfe!’, is confident, quite without the usual fearfulness. Mari Eriksmoen is a formidable Blonde. When the Pasha’s old steward Osmin orders her to love him, her furious lecture on women’s freedom leads to everything in her kitchen becoming a missile. I was in two minds about the Osmin. Tobias Kehrer looks too young, more like a Viking than a Turk, and he underplays Osmin’s dangerousness. But he sings so wonderfully – ‘O, wie will ich triumphieren’, with resonant bottom Ds, is a triumph indeed – that you can’t help but succumb to his portrayal.

If you’d prefer more traditional productions, Solti/Moshinsky (Warner) or Böhm/Everding (DG: live, not lip-synched) would serve very well. But – my reservations notwithstanding – Ticciati/McVicar is a delight.