Live, Video: Kritiken zu klassischen Konzerten, Opern, Ballett und Tanz finden | The Siege of Calais (L'assedio di Calais)

Odyssey Opera gives the US première of the original three-act version of L'assedio di Calais, with every note Donizetti wrote in 1836.

The Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown, New York always does themed seasons. This year the season was about the idea of home. As such, the production directed by Francesca Zambello was updated from the Middle Ages to a modern-day refugee camp.

Written half a century before the verismo movement, Donizetti paints a true-to-life portrait of a besieged people which is genuinely touching. James Conway's straightforward production features some notable individual singers and an excellent performance by the chorus.

A very concise, two-act opera which tells a bleak wartime tale of sacrifice, rarely performed and never realised to the satisfaction of its own composer. You could be forgiven for thinking I was describing something from 20th-century Germany, perhaps an expressionist work taking after Berg’s Wozzeck or similar. You’d be wrong.