Don Giovanni, Royal Opera House, London

It isn't just Don Giovanni who feels the heat in the closing minutes of Francesca Zambello's Royal Opera staging. Great plumes of fire sprout from the stage and a flaming gauntlet blazes a trail across it, the fickle finger of fate pointed accusingly at the downcast Don. One imagines the conductor must feel rather vulnerable, too. If ever there were incentive for a scorching finale, this is it.

Don Giovanni, Royal Opera House, London

It isn't just Don Giovanni who feels the heat in the closing minutes of Francesca Zambello's Royal Opera staging. Great plumes of fire sprout from the stage and a flaming gauntlet blazes a trail across it, the fickle finger of fate pointed accusingly at the downcast Don. One imagines the conductor must feel rather vulnerable, too. If ever there were incentive for a scorching finale, this is it.

But at least the fickle finger is not yet pointed at Antonio Pappano, opening his second season as music director of the Royal Opera in some style. He led an exceptional cast in this his first Mozart opera for the house. And that cast seemed to enliven Zambello's rather laborious production. Pyrotechnics apart, there isn't too much that is theatrically gratifying about it. I wouldn't, for instance, choose to remember the late, great Maria Bjornson for her designs for this show. The set provides fluency but awkward, often feeble, vantage points for key moments. Much of the action quite literally goes to the wall on its account. The one exception is a somewhat surreal finale to act one where Bjornson's painted ballroom begins to bend and close in, Dali-like, on the Don and his guests prompting a survival-of-the fittest escape up the nearest convenient rope.

The Don in this revival is the Canadian baritone Gerald Finley - and after Bryn Terfel and Simon Keenlyside he has tough acts to follow. Finley's strength is his arrogant bearing and vain manner with nonchalant flicks of his long mane suggesting one who, supremely confident in his aristocratic immunity, is never, ever ruffled. He sings, too, with the emphasis on those sotto voce enticements, sweet and seductive, and he's assisted by Pappano who more than most is prepared to look for and exploit the quiet shadowy recesses of this score.

Dons, of course, are more often than not inclined to be upstaged by their Leporellos and Finley's near-nemesis is the Uruguayan bass Erwin Schrott, a terrific performer all the more threatening for being a seasoned Don himself.

Indeed, you really feel for once that this Leporello's saving grace is the accident of birth which placed him at the wrong end of the food chain. He's a looker with a big voice and wonderful audacity in the recitative.

There's luxury casting, too, for Don Ottavio, a sap of a role ennobled here by Ian Bostridge's singing. He's not a natural stage animal though visually you might be persuaded otherwise on account of his alarming resemblance to one of those slightly overdone 18th century etchings - too pale, too tall, too thin, too effete. This being the later Vienna revision of Don Giovanni (and not the Prague original that Mackerras conducted last time around) he gets his aria "Dalla sua pace" which he sings with real artistry achieving one of those rare moments of frisson in the theatre - a fragile, pin-dropping pianissimo in the reprise.

As for the women, without whom, of course, there would be no narrative imperative, Nuccia Focile's Donna Elvira duly arrived in urgent pursuit of her deserter armed with telescope, map, and musket. For her, the opera might be renamed "Elvira Get Your Gun". A new slant on the shotgun wedding. Singing, as ever, for the cause and never the effect she conveyed well the irrationality of one for whom love and hate are now indivisible. "Mi tradi" was a little too hyper-ventilated to be comfortable but the neurotic spirit prevailed. The only real difference between Donna Elvira and Donna Anna is that the latter succeeds rather better in keeping her powder dry. Anna Netrebko looked a complete knock-out in the role and sounded almost as good. "Non mi dir" was very accomplished indeed. And let's not forget the radiant Zerlina of Rosemary Joshua.

The show ends with a final glimpse of the Don and yet one more naked woman looking all too comfortable in that "other place". Which only goes to prove that not all wrong-doers get their due deserts and that some actually like it hot.

To 11 October (020-7304 4000)