For all that most of the singers here are quite young and comparatively little known, this is an impressive set that needs to be taken seriously. Bertrand de Billy, chief conductor the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, directs it with plenty of energy – evident right from the start in his dramatic, pulsing account of the overture. He takes the opening scene, as it were, all in one breath, at a quickish tempo, as if the events in it are out of control (as of course they are, from Giovanni’s standpoint, and from Anna’s too), and the sense of urgency persists into the duet for Anna and Ottavio.

And it continues: Elvira’s ‘Ah chi mi dice mai’, with its commentary from Giovanni and Leporello, has more than a hint of her desperate passion in its haste and its sharp accents, and the peasants who soon enter prove to be a jolly lot – at least at first, until the urgency and toughness of the class struggle take over. Most but not all the tempi are quick: ‘Là ci darem’ is lingering (though Elvira’s enraged interruption of the seduction is forceful enough), and Zerlina’s consolatory music to Masetto moves gently (with some forward and particularly telling orchestral detail in ‘Batti, batti’). Masetto’s anger at the start of the finale, with a Zerlina who gives as good as she gets, is another specially fiery moment; but de Billy does allow plenty of space for the maskers’ trio. There is little dawdling in the painfully lovely trio at the beginning of Act 2, and not much in the sextet: in fact Leporello only just has time to enunciate his words at the end of it.

You may rightly infer that this is a passionate and vigorously characterised performance, with plenty of drama and strong emotion. The singers rise to it. The Anna, Regina Schörg, has a full, bright and well-rounded voice, impassioned in her narration to Ottavio of the night’s events (where the orchestra is duly explosive), hugely energetic in ‘Or sai chi l’onore’, with well marked expressive phrasing. She has an Ottavio who for once is no wimp: Jeffrey Francis produces firm, truly masculine tenor tone – with this Ottavio the idea of vengeance is credible.

Heidi Brunner brings plenty of nervous tension and some tenderness to Elvira’s music, and Zerlina is prettily and gracefully sing by Birgid Steinberger. Reinhard Mayr makes a tough, snappy Masetto. There is a sharply drawn Leporello from Maurizio Muraro, rather dry in voice, clear, not specially subtle. There isn’t a great deal of vocal contrast between him and Kwangchul Youn’s Giovanni, which is strongly sung if inclined to bluster, for example in ‘Fin ch’han dal vino’, and dark and slightly choked-sounding rather than truly ingratiating in the would-be seductions. But Youn holds his own as he descends into damnation, while the statue’s voice (in the cemetery scene, too) is much ‘enhanced’ by added resonance.

The main text of the original Prague version is contained on the first two CDs; all the Viennese additions, including the rare Zerlina-Leporello duet, are given on the short third CD. This may not be the Don Giovanni of first choice, but it’s a vigorous and well-unified interpretation and certainly one to be reckoned with.