First seen in 2010, ENO's current production of Mozart's Don Giovanni marked Rufus Norris's directorial debut in opera. Indifferently received when it was new, it remains an oddly chilly experience, hampered by moments of theatrical intransigence and the curious taking of liberties with the score. Norris updates the opera to the present and locates it in a modern urban hell-hole, where hooded, demonic figures rub shoulders with the protagonists, who, all too frequently, act in defiance of Mozart's compassion and sensuality.

Far from being amoral and sexually vital, Iain Paterson's Giovanni is a predatory stalker, whose exploits are voyeuristically photographed by Darren Jeffrey's grubbily unkempt Leporello. Anna (Katherine Broderick) and Ottavio (Ben Johnson), meanwhile, manage to leave her father's corpse out with the trash while they plot revenge for his murder, while Sarah Redgwick's Elvira, given to wandering round town with only a coat on over her underwear, is an unpredictable harpy. There's no sense of social differentiation in terms of class or money, and the only moments of genuine eroticism are allotted to Sarah Tynan's Zerlina and John Molloy's Masetto.

The singing is classy, though Broderick blurs her coloratura a bit. Paterson sounds seductive, even when Norris seems unwilling to allow him to be so on stage. Jeffrey, who can be terrifically funny, enjoys himself imitating Paterson when the two men swap identities. Edward Gardner's conducting has tremendous drive and edge, though there are some odd editorial choices regarding the score – the running order of the second act arias has been changed, for no obvious reason. More detrimental, perhaps, is the omission of Il Mio Tesoro Intanto. Mozart himself cut the aria for the opera's 1788 Vienna revival. But it seems perverse to drop it here, when Johnson's Ottavio is among the most beautifully sung of recent years.

• What have you been to see lately? Tell us about it on Twitter using #GdnReview