Don Giovanni, English National Opera

Theatricality has always been English National Opera’s go-to manoeuvre, the uppercut to the jaw of heavyweight international vocal talent up the road at Covent Garden. The witty provocations of last year’s Le Grand Macabre and even the bizarre excess of Rupert Goold’s Turandot upped the stakes, presenting this season’s directors with something of a challenge. Borrowing first from the world of the West End musical, ENO opted for Des McAnuff’s rather limp Faust. Now, looking to theatre and the edgy talent of Rufus Norris, comes a Don Giovanni electric with iconoclastic, if occasionally unfocused, energy.

Unawed by the canonic sanctity of the material, Norris loses little time in claiming his own dramatic space within the opera. The two climactic rests that punctuate the overture’s opening orchestral gesture become charged with the crackle and flare of electricity, the brief pauses between arias and recitative caressed by the ghostly exhalations – only a little bit camp – of the Commendatore. While remaining faithful to the work’s essential architecture (some furniture rearranging in the Act Two running order aside), Norris discovers greater flexibility within it, identifying alcoves and alleyways – dead dramatic spaces ripe for habitation.

Ian MacNeil, Norris’s familiar collaborator, has produced a set whose physical ingenuity is almost a match for its unattractiveness. A giant, curved affair of metal hangs from the ceiling, dominating the hangar-like space with ominous intent, and emitting the odd flurry of sparks if tension ever drops. Separate units of Seventies-inspired style – a brutalist concrete bunker, home to Donna Anna; a yellow-tiled bedsit; a psychedelic, pastel fantasy of a shag-pad, complete with mint leatherette chaise longue – all shift and rotate to create a fluid and unstable world, the constant reconfiguring mirroring the reinventions of Don Giovanni himself.

Matching the unbuttoned fluidity of the direction is Jeremy Sams’s translation, a miracle of unforced playfulness. Freed from the obligation of fidelity, his innovations give Norris unusual control, refocusing or reconceiving arias entirely. At the lighter end this yields a catalogue aria from Leporello of up-to-the-minute technological efficiency, featuring an overhead projector and a series of graphs: “If I said ‘spreadsheet’ it would be appropriate”. The ladies themselves experience a similar update, including “Dark and fair girls, Swedish au pair girls”. More weighty however is the rewrite of Don Giovanni’s serenade, “Deh vieni alla sua finestra”, taking it from a simple love song to an altogether more poignant and psychological affair: a craving for a real love, for the woman who could change him, and by extension his fate.

Matching Norris’s energy, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s Kirill Karabits sets tempos that are uniformly speedy. What they gain in crisp momentum they occasionally lose in clarity, failing to acknowledge the needs of the wordier English translation. Casualties were few but severe; the “champagne aria” lost poise in the scramble for articulation, and the two “onstage” bands in Act One, split across boxes on either side of the auditorium, parted company rather painfully.

Onstage the tone is set by the fast-paced, barely sung recitative exchanges between Don Giovanni (Iain Paterson) and Leporello (Brindley Sherratt). Carrying off the vernacular informality with skill, but without overplaying it (as Erwin Schrott’s Figaro did recently at Covent Garden), they achieve a convincing approximation of musical theatre without sacrificing musical integrity. Sherratt brings more than a touch of Sparafucile to Leporello. His hangdog, greasy-locked sidekick is a world away from the more wholesome henchmen of Jonathan Lemalu or Bryn Terfel, but achieves a rather more sinister, more noticeably co-dependent dynamic with his master, suited to this dark production.

Iain Paterson, fresh from the role of Mephistopheles, needs to make little adjustment to fit into the garish red suit and purple trainers of this latter-day Don. He is not the most obvious of seducers, yet his boorish charms coupled with some elegantly produced singing make for a surprisingly pleasing combination. Strongest at his most extrovert and full-toned, the inward fragility of “Deh vieni” lacked support, exposing a few cracks that spoke of some vocal wear.

Making her ENO debut, Katherine Broderick is a Donna Anna at full volume, both vocally and dramatically. While she has all the goods for the role (amply demonstrated in “Or sai chi l’onore”), there is as yet a lack of control that leads to blurting in the upper registers. Lacking Broderick’s power, but making up for it with her sensitive dramatics is Sarah Redwick’s stand-in Donna Elvira (replacing an ailing Rebecca Evans), with Sarah Tynan’s enchanting Zerlina rounding out the women.

This is by no means a perfect production. Symbols tend towards the obvious, dramatic paths are opened up, only to remain untrodden, unpursued. The Act Two sextet with its bizarre emotional meltdowns (which see Zerlina contorting in must-get-to-the-bathroom need, Don Ottavio performing a spontaneous striptease, and Donna Anna indulging in a brief Riverdance homage) comes from nowhere, and the Don’s demise is frankly underwhelming. Yet there is a boldness here that combines a healthy respect for the musical material (none of the typical first-time opera director errors from Norris) with a lack of fear. Norris’s Don Giovanni may be a bit of rough, but its unwashed charms have their place among the many wearily polished, aristocratic alternatives.

• Don Giovanni at the London Coliseum until 3 December
• See what's on at English National Opera in 2010-11 on theartsdesk
• Find Don Giovanni on Amazon