Performer: Harriet Eyley

An excellent singing cast combine with Bruno Ravella's sensitive direction and brilliant orchestral playing to bring to life Strauss' heady mix of farce and high art.

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.

Composer-librettist Adamo does full justice to Louisa May Alcott's 19th-century bestseller, one of the most widely read works in American literature.