Performer: Jevan McAuley

Quality singing in Cecilia Stinton's new staging comes from touchingly ardent soprano Alison Langer, as Micaëla.

In a 70th anniversary season dedicated to adaptations of Shakespeare, this concert performance made a compelling case for Karl Goldmark's final opera.

While it may seem perfectly formed for the full grand opera treatment, Verdi's classic Un ballo in maschera can also work extremely well on a small scale, as shown by this intimate and compelling treatment by Timothy Nelson at Iford.