Don Giovanni squeezes the giant tomato ketchup dispenser over his Kentucky Fried Chicken – Col Sanders beaming from its boxes – with the same vigour he has earlier applied to a paint spray, producing in both cases significant gouts of red.

From this it will be inferred that the former Royal Shakespeare Company boss Michael Boyd’s new production of Mozart’s magnificent opera – Garsington’s fourth in its 30 years and the second at Wormsley – is a far from conventional take on the classic.

The KFC feast, by the way, is the fatal dinner at home to which DG has rashly invited the talking, moving statue of the slain Commendatore (bass Paul Whelan). The paint spray is the means by which – in the dirty don’s lavish shower of gore – has been metaphorically presented his slaughter of the old man.

The central conceit of Boyd’s eye-catching, if at times tasteless, production is that the lecherous Giovanni (brilliantly presented by baritone Jonathan McGovern) is an artist, a comment perhaps on the legendary libidinousness of the breed.

His home doubles as studio and gallery, wherein large paintings – some executed during the action – serve in Tom Piper’s design as sliding panels and backcloths.

The art collection includes, prominently displayed, Gabriël Metsu’s The Triumph of Justice (1655-60), reminding us of the scales destined to be tipped firmly against the don before long. The Libertine Punished indeed, in the words of the opera’s alternative title.

Musically, the production is a huge and marvellously satisfying feast, with the Garsington Opera Orchestra in magnificent form (under the company’s artistic director Douglas Boyd) from the opening bars of the famous overture.

During this we see Donna Elvira (soprano Sky Ingram) ‘sacrificed’ – she a very willing victim – in what seems designed as a work of performance art observed with resignation by Leporello (bass baritone David Ireland.) Another added to the long catalogue of conquest the put-upon manservant will later tell us about (superbly) in the opera’s best-known number.

Meanwhile Elvira, spurned like all the don’s amours, is out for revenge on the molester, in which enterprise she is joined by Donna Anna (soprano Camila Titinger) who is out to avenge her rape and the murder of her father, the Commendatore, while trying to stop it.

There follows to the end what so often seems a battle of the sopranos, in the matter of trills and other vocal thrills, which ends on this occasion with honours – high honours – shared.

To the emotional heft of the work is added the notable contribution of Anna’s swain Don Ottavio (tenor Trystan Llŷr Griffiths) who brought tears to my eyes in the affecting aria ‘Dalla sua pace’ .

Completing the superb line-up in principal roles are soprano Mireille Asselin as country bride Zerlina and bass Thomas Faulkner as her bridegroom Masetto, struggling to keep her from the don’s clutches.

This is Garsington at its mighty best.

Until July 21. (01865 361636) 5/5