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A musically sensitive account of Monteverdi’s Poppea, with simple staging and 1950s costumes, sees singing triumph noticeably over the relative theatrical inexperience of HGO’s talented young cast. 

Benjie del Rosario ignites a thrilling Pagliacci, while Cavalleria rusticana is potentially as good but marred by intelligibility and balance issues.

Excellent ensemble work makes for a compelling rendering of Britten's satirical chamber opera Albert Herring, with some impressive young tenor and baritone voices. 

La Calisto is a delicious mash-up of two classical legends: Jupiter’s seduction of Diana’s acolyte Calisto and Diana’s own romance with the shepherd Endymion. The plot is helter-skelter, Anne Ridler’s translation of Giovanni Faustini’s libretto is sassy and fun. I can’t imagine being more entertained by an evening’s chamber opera.

What do you go to the opera for? The question has a thousand answers, but if you’re going to Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, the chances are that you’re expecting some frothy romantic comedy, some elegant music and a bunch of tunes that will stay in your head when the show is over.

There’s something pretty special about going to see one of the very first operas ever written. It’s particularly special if you love the rhythms of renaissance dance music, the harmonies of polyphonic choral music and if, as I am, you are an admirer of Claudio Monteverdi’s vocal writing: it’s quite plausible to argue that he remains unmatched in his ability to spin a beautiful vocal thread and wea

Set in the wonderful theatre upstairs at the Gatehouse pub in Highgate, Hampstead Garden Opera’s new production of L’Orfeo by Monteverdi contained some memorable images and richly resonant chorus passages.

There is usually a good reason why operas which lie unperformed for many years do so – some flaw in the plotting, characters who fail to interest an audience, or musical langueurs. It was therefore with somewhat low expectations that I went to Hampstead Garden Opera’s production of Vaughan Williams’ Hugh the Drover. Imagine my surprise and delight.

We are in a small Cotswold market town in 1810. It's the height of the Napoleonic wars, fear of Bonapartist spies abounds. A stranger rolls into town - a roving man whose profession is rounding up wild horses for the military - and wins the hand of the daughter of the town Constable in a bare knuckle prize fight. Somehow, you just know that there's going to be trouble.

When the king of the gods falls head over heels in love with you, seriously bad stuff happens. If you're a Handelian soprano like Semele, however, it happens very tunefully and in a thoroughly pleasant, elegant and cheerful manner for the whole evening.If you're confused as to the difference between opera and oratorio, Semele is the perfect aid to your confusion.

No wonder the 1744 audience was shocked by this “oratorio” which, far from drawing on Biblical themes, displays before us the sexual misdemeanor of the immortal Jove, with a mortal, Semele.

It might be a useful “rule of thumb” for every director of opera, to imagine the audience will be coming to the opera for the first time and view his own job as giving maximum clarity to the production he or she is working on.

Mozart's Magic Flute is so well-known and so well-loved that a director must tread a tricky path. If the production is too conventional, he is accused of being boring and hackneyed; if it's too full of clever inventive ideas, he is accused of betraying the original. Fortunately, the director has one overriding thing going for him: Mozart's music.

Mozart's La Clemenza Di Tito was written in the last year of his life around the same time as Die Zauberflöte, the Clarinet Concerto and the Requiem, when Mozart was at the height of his powers.