They really don’t make them like this any more. Recorded in 2015 and now emerging as a tribute to the late director-designer Franco Zeffirelli, who died earlier this year, the production is lavish and highly populated, 18th-century Seville in all its Baroque glory. There are monumental sets, cavorting tumblers and eye-poppingly colourful costumes: big wigs, rouged faces, generous décolletages.

Zeffirelli certainly grasped the need for big-picture spectacle in a huge barn like the Roman Arena in Verona. The action is all based around a palazzo facade that doubles up as Donna Anna’s mansion, the Don’s own lair and the public spaces in which Carlos Álvarez’s anti-hero prowls around looking for fresh victims.

Capturing all the comings and goings is a challenge for the video director in this space and the result is unsatisfying – when we aren’t in close-up, the camera either hovers above the action, as if the opera were being shot from a drone, or, equally mystifyingly, we get a view from somewhere below the cast’s feet. Zeffirelli was never a details man, or perhaps he didn’t realise one day we’d be zooming into the show from our sofas, but when Irina Lungu’s Donna Anna finds her father’s blood on the ground, there is no blood to see, and when Masetto is soundly thrashed by Giovanni, his aggressor doesn’t even make contact. Ho hum.

And yet … There’s still plenty of conviction in this show, and if you overlook the creakiness of some of the stagecraft (a plasticky ‘living statue’ and little razzle dazzle for Giovanni’s demise), Zeffirelli’s respect for the drama’s sheer grandiosity – and the niceties of its social drama – does come through. It’s enough for Giovanni to unsheath his sword just a fraction and Masetto knows to back off. Rank and swagger count for nearly everything, so Giovanni has no need to exercise restraint.

Although the playing of the Arena di Verona Orchestra can be erratic, conductor Stefano Montanari falls in sync with the mood of the show and gives us BIG effects – romantic fervour in lingering codas and equally dreamy flights of improvisation from the fortepiano. It’s the right framework for the hefty, arena-size voices. Álvarez gets out there and sweats as Don Giovanni, a carnivore let loose in the petting zoo, although let down by a rather woofy serenade that wouldn’t get anyone down from their balcony in a hurry.

The standouts are the superb Lungu as Donna Anna, fierce and brilliant in her arias, and Saimir Pirgu’s ardent, stylish Ottavio. Maria José Siri’s unfocused and sometimes unpitched Donna Elvira is less pleasurable, and Natalia Roman’s vibrato-heavy Zerlina blows hot and cold. But Alex Esposito’s experienced, wry Leporello is enjoyable, and Christian Senn’s Masetto is nicely blokeish – despite his lurid wedding garb.