TO LIFE’S rich tapestry I can now add the experience of watching Don Giovanni while perched on a coffin in a disused Birmingham bank.

Graham Vick’s Birmingham Opera Company has a happy knack of snatching triumph from the jaws of incongruity. But to take this dark tale of a man living entirely for momentary gratification and place it within the chaste, marbled walls of a great Victorian banking hall, under such improving mottos as “Thrift radiates happiness”, is a masterstroke of irony.

And to play the drama on and around two dozen coffins is an equally apt reminder that Mozart’s opera is as much about death and judgment as about life and pleasure. Vick even starts with Giovanni’s funeral: the cast are singing Jerusalem when Mozart’s overture crashes in, and the bank’s revolving door is sent whirling, as if by a poltergeist. Only at the end does the significance become clear.

As usual with Vick, the opera is boldly modernised from the title downwards. Giovanni goes on the prowl wearing a rapist’s stocking over his head and texts photos of his conquests to Leporello, who passes them round a bunch of leering lads. There’s a disturbing scene of “happy slapping” and a lot of getting blind drunk. In short, it’s any town in 21st-century Britain, any Saturday night.

But what gives this company’s productions their special energy is their daring proximity — the performers are inches from the spectators, who must be prepared to move with the action — and the use of dozens of locally recruited amateur extras who act with tremendous gusto and conviction.

Not everything works perfectly. Despite William Lacey’s vigorous conducting, the rapport between singers and orchestra, tucked away on a balcony, unhinges in places. And after some entertaining visual coups before the interval, including Giovanni making a spectacular exit standing precariously on a moving Steinway, later scenes seem tamely staged.

But an indefatigable cast never let the tension slip. As Giovanni, Rodney Clarke doesn’t get as much of Amanda Holden’s lively translation across as others do, but his sardonic glee is memorable, and Andrew Slater’s mesmerising Leporello is an ideal foil. Natasha Jouhl lets rip in Donna Anna’s big numbers; Mark Wilde is an unusually touching Ottavio; Susan Atherton looks and sounds delicious as Zerlina; and there are zesty performances from Andee-Louise Hypolite (Elvira), Keel Watson (Commendatore) and Robert Winslade Anderson (Masetto). If nothing else, He Had It Coming is undoubtedly the liveliest show to be seen in a bank this year.

Box office: 0121-767 4260.

To March 25