The previous instalments in Theodor Currentzis’s survey of the Mozart-da Ponte operas tended to be enthralling and exasperating by turns. His Don Giovanni, always designed as the crowning final release, we’re told, follows the pattern, while also throwing an extra dash of disappointment into the mix.

This seems in large part to be due to the conductor’s strange attitude towards authenticity, as expounded in an occasionally insightful, intermittently somewhat batty interview in the lavish hardback book that houses the release. There he bemoans the infiltration of 19th century bel canto manners into Mozart singing, and suggests that something more rustic and folksy is what’s required for certain numbers.

Some more eccentric ideas include the assertion that there was nothing between Don Giovanni and Wozzeck in that particular modernist line, as well as a strong implication that the second half of the Act 2 finale – after Don Giovanni’s damnation – was added for the opera’s Vienna performances (it wasn’t). What we get here, incidentally, is the standard conflation of Prague and Vienna versions, with the added dubious bonus of Zerlina and Masetto’s ‘bondage’ duet in Act 2, ‘Per queste tue manine’.

Currentzis also explains how he set out to create a recording that would produce enough sense of theatre for home listening. In doing so, he has clearly spent an enormous amount of time with his orchestra: there’s hardly a note from them that doesn’t feel as though it’s been carefully removed, cleaned, polished and replaced. The results are bracing, with a vibrancy and visceral buzz that is often undeniably exciting. Listen to the springy introduction to ‘Ah! chi mi dice mai’, for example, to the raucous storm whipped up in the accompaniment to the Champagne aria, or the fiercely articulated string playing that accompanies the chorus of demons in the Act 2 finale. When Don Giovanni fights the Commendatore at the start, you can almost hear the clatter of sabres.

But while faster sections bristle with energy – often feeling very fast, rushed even – Currentzis lets the tension drop in the less dramatic moments. All momentum is allowed to dissipate, for example, at Don Ottavio’s ‘Or che tutti’ in the Act 2 finale, while the ‘Non ti fidar, o misera’ quartet in Act 1 is almost perversely docile. Recitative throughout is slow, under-projected and strangely internalised. Indeed, in contrast to the playing he elicits from his orchestra, Currentzis seems generally to have encouraged his principals either to under-sing, rein in their voices or espouse resolutely neutral-sounding characterisations – or all three. Singers trained in a post-bel canto age here, therefore, have to sing according to the rules of what, one is left to infer, their conductor imagines as a pre-bel canto age of innocence. But it’s never clear what that really represents: much is stripped away; very little, apart from some modest ornamentation and rustic additions in the orchestra, is offered in its stead.

So we have a very pleasantly sung Don Giovanni from the Greek baritone Dimitris Tiliakos, but one that never really communicates much charisma. Vito Priante’s Leporello is in many ways excellent but is likewise prevented from developing his characterisation in the slow recitatives. Kenneth Tarver sings pleasingly as a lyrical Don Ottavio, but Myrtò Papatanasiu’s Donna Anna is small-scale and short on any aristocratic grandezza. Karina Gauvin, so fiery in Baroque repertoire, allows Donna Elvira’s character to shine through only intermittently, and similarly seems to be reining her voice in. Christina Gansch is a very respectable Zerlina (and turns in a lovely ‘Batti, batti’); but there’s a definite sense of the differences between these three women – their respective positions on the social scale so clearly delineated by Mozart and da Ponte – having been ironed out. Guido Loconsolo and Mika Kares complete the cast well enough as Masetto and the Commendatore.

Production values are very high, Sony’s sound is outstanding, and in some ways this set forms a fitting conclusion to a variable series. It’s certainly worth hearing once, and maybe dipping into a couple of extra times after that. It’s an uneven achievement based on some unconvincing interpretative ideas, though, and not a Don Giovanni to live with.