Performer: Douglas Boyd

Simple solutions prove the best in Beethoven's "problem" opera as John Cox's staging is revived at Garsington.

Jack Furness directs a terrific new Queen of Spades at Garsington – haunting and harrowing. 

In the first and last acts, ladies entered with a train still attached to a bolt of cloth, which was then cut to length by an attendant. Was this production brought to the stage in a great hurry, allowing no time for costume fittings?