Calixto Bieito’s staging of Mozart’s opera buffa caused something close to apoplexy among the more conservative daily newspapers when it appeared at the London Coliseum in the early 2000s. Was this because, like Da Ponte’s libretto, the Catalan director’s vision of the last hours in the life of the “extremely licentious”, not-very-noble man is set in a contemporary world of sex, violence, remorse and social and psychological breakdown?

The crises that bind these characters’ lives together are explored with unflinching directness. Regina Schorg’s virtuoso Donna Anna, happily bonking Wojtek Drabowicz’s charismatic, sleazy Giovanni in the back seat of her father’s car (Kwangchul Youn’s infectiously energetic Leporello is the chauffeur), has to call out her boring, safe boyfriend Don Ottavio (Marcel Reijans, superb playing Mr Nobody) when Giovanni slashes out too hard at interfering daddy (Anatoly Kocherga, a busman’s holiday from his noted Boris). Mozart hints at all kind of hidden dangers as Anna makes Ottavio swear to avenge her; Bieito suggests that she’s trading sex for a cover-up of the fatal accident that her actions provoked. The always tricky Ottavio/Anna relationship continues in this vein (her invention of what happened with Giovanni before “Non mi dir” is another tease), via Anna’s bitchy frustration when she realises (Act 1 Quartet) that Elvira (Veronique Gens) was an event in Giovanni’s life, up to the point when Ottavio gains some small satisfaction (but almost by force) in her second aria.

I’ve concentrated on one relationship to give a flavour of Bieito’s approach. There are any number of other illuminations – the Giovanni/Leporello hierarchy of control/exploitation/need; the tabloid, Ibiza clubworld of Masetto and Zerlina; Gens’s terrifyingly complete portrait of a woman who loves too much; the convincing resituating in today’s clothes of a world where indulgent caprice and exploitation can literally destroy people’s lives. This, then, is no concert in costume but, even if you think you prefer your Don Giovanni as a clone of Errol Flynn’s 1930s Elizabethan movies, I urge you to try this serious, black and often wickedly funny piece of theatre.

The musical performance has its own distinction, as well as complete integration with the staging concept. If “old” clothes are de rigueur in your home theatre, then Peter Hall/Bernard Haitink (ArtHaus) is the sharpest of the period pieces. But the three radical Giovannis now on DVD – Deborah Warner at Glyndebourne (NVC, A/00) and Peter Sellars on film (Decca) are the other two – offer more dangerous and challenging viewing and listening.