The new production of Don Giovanni at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden has a magnificent cast.The quality of the performances, however, must be weighed against that of the staging.

For its first run of live performances, the production benefitted from both the buzz of a real audience and a generally superior cast to that of the première.Vincent Huguet’s staging, however, remained aggressively bland and perplexingly uninspired, a triumph of sets and costumes over ideas and characters.

There was no question that it was great to hear Mozart performed once again by a live orchestra in a real auditorium, but the concert nonetheless seemed more a tentative step than a triumphant return, as though both audience and orchestra were finding their respective bearings in a world that had lost some of its reassuring familiarity.