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Mélisande als Lulu in David Pountneys unbefriedigender Inszenierung von Debussys Pelléas et Mélisande für die Welsh National Opera.

Finding a partner for Bartók's creepy one-acter is a thorny problem, but Welsh National Opera pairs it with Stravinsky's ‘opera-oratorio’ for its season opener. 

Olivia Fuchs gives a powerful staging of Janáček's morality tale of the perils of eternal youth, with an excellent cast, but there are reservations about the title role.

WNO finally emerges from the pandemic with a performance of The Barber of Seville full of emotion and elation.

A solid Figaro in Cardiff, in which individual performances are a joy, and humour abounds. 

David Pountney completes his “Verdi trilogy” for the company but although his staging has fluidity, it lacks an explosive ending... and the vocal performances disappoint. 

Virginie Verrez acted not with fire and ice but with gallic insouciance.

It is a thing of wonder that Roberto Devereux is one of Donizetti’s lesser known works. Whether on account of its challenging soprano part, or its fussy Tudor setting, it is rarely performed, but contains some of the composer’s most beautiful – and indeed memorable – arias and duets.

Dominic Cooke’s Magritte-inspired production returns to Wales Millennium Centre to keep the audience giggling. 

Musically, WNO gets it right. Straightforward brilliance is the order of the day, and plenty of it.

Delights both sugary and strange in this revival of La Cenerentola by Welsh National Opera.

WNO make a compelling case for Prokofiev's gargantuan War and Peace.

A strong cast take us to the brink of damnation in Welsh National Opera’s revival of Don Giovanni.

Carlo Rizzi conducts WNO's Tosca revival in Cardiff.

When the entire plot is triggered by a freak accident, you can't blame director David Pountney for making Fate itself one of the key characters.  

David Pountney's House of the Dead makes for high entertainment at Welsh National Opera.

Welsh National Opera’s new season commemorating the centenary of the 1917 Revolution with three Russian-themed works opens with both a bang and a whimper with this trenchant revival.

Gloriously sung and stylishly played, this Rosenkavalier is a feast for the ears and eyes and should be heard without delay. 

A musically excellent and unpretentious performance of Puccini's masterpiece from Cardiff.

Welsh National Opera's co-production of Kiss me, Kate is another good argument for opera companies to stage Broadway musicals.

Oliver Sears' production of Macbeth comes to Cardiff in a production which offers a great deal musically but doesn't quite coalesce dramatically. 

André Tchaikowsky's version of The Merchant of Venice combines his love of Shakespeare with his recollections of a harsh childhood as a Jew in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Welsh National Opera may have reached the ripe old age of seventy but it's very much alive and kicking.

David Jones' First World War epic poem comes to musical life in Iain Bell's newly-commissioned opera. 

Ratmansky's Concerto DSCH proves the perfect show opener, before the Mariinsky Ballet reclaims Sasha Waltz's Sacre.

Lothar Koenigs conducted a musically excellent and dramatically straightforward performance of Mozart's Marriage of Figaro in Cardiff.

Pascal Rophé, Elizabeth Atherton and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales celebrate Dutilleux’s centenary year with five contemporary works associated with the composer

Sondheim's Sweeney Todd seen and heard as it is: one of the greatest late-20th-century operas. 

With Lawrence Zazzo's spectacular counter-tenor voice, Handel's Orlando finds an ideal interpreter.

Annilese Miskimmon's production of I puritani mixes Royalists with Loyalists - but is musically successful under Carlo Rizzi's baton.

Richard Ayres's Peter Pan, in a new WNO production, leaves J.M. Barrie's story dangling. 

Hansel and Gretel is often treated as a children's opera, suitable for family viewing at Christmas, but as Richard Jones' production demonstrates, it is a good deal darker than that.

Lothar Koenigs conducts a stylish, colourful Magic Flute inspired by Magritte. 

The Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff celebrates its 10th anniversary this autumn, and as part of the celebrations the Mariinsky Opera, under its conductor Valery Gergiev, was invited back for a concert performance of Prokofiev’s comic opera, Betrothal in a Monastery.

A colour-coded Mosè in Egitto uses the paintings of Marc Chagall to inspire the costumes for the Jews and the Egyptians in this production of a Rossinian rarity.

Welsh National Opera's new production of Rossini's William Tell shows off orchestra and chorus to their full under Carlo Rizzi's baton

How does Usher House stand up? Like the house, it doesn’t. Welsh National Opera's double bill based on The Fall of the House of Usher underwhelms.

Rudolf Frey's production of Nabucco for Welsh National Opera undercuts the solemnity and beauty of the opera, detracting from some fine performances. 

A riveting performance of Schoenberg's Moses und Aron, despite the absence of the golden calf, the burning bush, Sodom and Gomorrah. 

A great post-war classic by Henze in a strong new production from Welsh National Opera. 

Miraculous as Jonathan Harvey’s music is, it seems reductive to call Wagner Dream an opera. Half the cast, after all, don’t even sing, but act: it’s a sincere meeting of music and theatre in a way that opera usually isn’t.

Welsh National Opera’s contribution to the Wagner bicentenary is in the form of a summer season entitled Wagner Dream, consisting of Jonathan Harvey’s opera of the same name, a run of Madam Butterfly, and Antony McDonald’s new production of Lohengrin. Lothar Koenigs conducted an excellent performance of Wagner’s romantic opera at a packed Wales Millennium Centre.

Whatever I was expecting from the European première of Mandela Trilogy, a musical tribute to the life of the iconic Nelson Mandela, it certainly wasn’t humour. Yet it is to writer and director Michael Williams’ credit that he has managed to convey what could have been extremely tense and serious subject matter with vibrancy and flair.