SINCE he took over as music director last September, Richard Farnes has been making a powerful impression on Opera North in general and its orchestra in particular.

His handling of this new Olivia Fuchs' production lifts the company on to a purely musical level it has previously never achieved with Mozart.

There are subtle shades of meaning, deft little touches throughout the orchestra, all the way from the portentous overture to the terrifyingly swirling vortex of the Don's descent to hell.

Close your eyes at almost any point and the meaning of the action is transparently clear.

If one section deserves particular praise, it is the woodwinds. Capricious one moment, ghostly the next. Best of all, the orchestra seems to weave in and out of the voices, so that the singers are always allowed to be buoyant, yet colours are touched into the gaps in their melodies, however small.

This alone makes the evening a rare treat.

The production itself is more problematic. There is little wrong with the voices themselves. Roderick Williams's versatile baritone is style personified. Even in his most athletic moments, he sustains a smooth focus. Giselle Allen's strong Elvira is touching, too. We feel her pain. Revenge steams from Susannah Glanville's Anna, coming nicely to the boil in act two.

Iain Paton manages an honest Ottavio, who is nevertheless more than a mere wimp, a feat in itself. Wyn Pencarreg and Kim-Marie Woodhouse make a fetching pair as Masetto and Zerlina, if a touch more streetwise than the usual rustics. Andrew Foster-Williams is a lithe Leporello (though he needs a wig when feigning disguise).

Niki Turner's permanent set is dominated by a black gantry with ladders attached - nothing remotely aristocratic, let alone redolent of the Spanish Civil War we were promised, apart from a handful of back-projections. Bruno Poet's lighting is suitably murky.

So far, though, none of this is cause for serious disappointment.

What is disturbing is the lack of anything demonic in Giovanni himself. We even sympathise with him. His seduction technique is unvaryingly frivolous, not to say unconvincing.

We look in vain for a streak of cruelty. With the orchestra this red-hot, we deserve better from the director.

Updated: 10:49 Thursday, January 20, 2005