Tuesday was one of those quintessential Glyndebourne occasions when the sun is out, the picnicking is peaceful and the composer is Mozart. You could tell this was going to be an interesting performance from the very first tumble of chords. It was spacious, it sounded confident, it had a seasoned fluency.

Those qualities were elaborated over the following three hours as young Robin Ticciati, in his festival debut, gave us a demonstration of how to conduct Mozart. There was nothing didactic about his Così. Ticciati did not hector the music in the modern fashion, and yet his reading had attitude. With the London Philharmonic in the pit, he set a sensible tempo, let the music breathe naturally – that’s what I call style – and gave his singers the freedom of the stage. Reminders of the young Colin Davis were unmistakable: a harmony of energy and repose, an engaging pulse. And the physicality of Ticciati’s beat was very much in the Davis mould. Let’s hope that, after two or three years with the Glyndebourne tour, he gets lost somewhere in Europe, learns something of life and the rough and tumble of the profession, and comes back with the experience to fulfil his youthful promise.

When this Così was new last summer, my main complaint was that it looked insipid. It still does. Vicky Mortimer’s prefab sets are what you expect from a Neapolitan reproduction store, and there’s a Laura Ashley-ness about the stage behaviour that neuters Rinat Shaham’s potentially exciting Dorabella and Ainhoa Garmendia’s otherwise commendable Despina.

Nicholas Hytner’s production nevertheless sits better on this summer’s young quartet of lovers, largely because they appear more innocent of the tricks played on them by Mozart’s essay on the fickleness of love. Rachel Harnisch’s Fiordiligi behaves like an English girl in Naples – prim, delicate and small-scale – up to her act 2 aria when she suddenly blossoms. Pavol Breslik’s Ferrando also suffers from blandness: “Un’aura amorosa” is sung at an unvarying mezzo forte. By far the most plausible characters are Stéphane Degout’s sexy Guglielmo and Alfonso Antoniozzi’s Don Alfonso. Antoniozzi can barely sing but delivers the part off the text, with a real feeling for its subtext – which, in his case, is all that matters.  
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