Even after going through the fires of hell, Don Giovanni is eternal, that we know. But when he appears at curtain call, embracing his successor, it certainly adds a frisson to the proceedings. When Sir Thomas Allen, one of the great Don Giovannis of our time, ran on stage to greet Christopher Maltman, the Don of the evening, a huge roar of applause rang round the Sage.

As one of the finest singing sons of the North East, there’s nothing Tom Allen likes better than to return to work with the young scholars of the Hexham-based Samling Foundation, where he has directed masterclasses for the past 11 years. Nothing, that is, apart from directing. Although he’s still far from retiring as a singer, Allen’s second career is surging forward: Samling Opera’s Così in 2005, and this year Don Giovanni.

Even as the Northern Sinfonia is tuning up, the cast ambles on to the stage, shaking hands amicably. Then something goes sour. An uneasiness creeps between them, and they wander off. Maltman is left alone, just as that ear-splitting minor chord announces with its full weight of irony the start of Mozart’s dramma giocoso. With Thomas Zehetmair conducting, we’re pulled this way and that – as we should be. Anything could happen.

And whatever does take place in this gripping evening of theatre happens entirely within the music as it surges through the voices and shapes the body language of these young singers. It’s a production on a shoestring, yet extravagant in its care: no sets, unfussy costumes and lighting design as concentrated as the action. Allen encourages his singers to use every stepped level, every angle, to suspend the audience’s disbelief.

The voices can certainly take such close focus. The first shadowy trio between Don Giovanni, Leporello and the Commendatore is unusually powerful, as Maltman’s vocal excellence is matched by a first-rate, stentorian Commendatore in Ronald Nairne, and in Marc Labonnette a Leporello of mobile and resonant range. The women, too, are robustly characterised. Kate Valentine’s sensitive Donna Anna (with Adrian Ward’s earnestly elegant Don Ottavio) meets a fiery and fox-furred Donna Elvira, played by Lisa Milne. And Maltman’s wife, Leigh Woolf, is a touchingly sad and sombre Zerlina.

As well she might be. For Allen seems to be hinting that her Masetto (a puppyish Benedict Nelson, on fine form) is just as likely to subjugate her as the Don is. And it’s the control-freak male of the species that dominates here. Maltman’s presence is chilling because his every gesture betrays an obsessive need to control and exploit. When something (like a murder gone wrong, like the dead rising up) is outside his control, he is shaken by violent anger. And this energises him towards his fatal end.

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