Performer: Helen Brackenbury

Wolf-Ferrari's Il segreto di Susanna provides an airy bon-bouche to Tchaikovsky's Iolanta, brilliantly sung by Natalya Romaniw and David Butt Philip and conducted to fairy-tale perfection by Sian Edwards

“Folies Bergère does Greek gods” is how director Martin Duncan describes Offenbach's Orphée aux enfers, and his production for Royal Academy Opera is enormous fun. 

In Shoreditch, the Royal Academy of Music showed off some superb singing in a chilling exploration of tyranny and unrestrained power.