Performer: Kiril Manolov

This was more stadium rock than stuffy opera house, lighting as ‘metaphor made real’ as the lovers were – literally – star-struck, blinded by love.

David McVicar's production may divide audiences with its no holds barred approach to the debauchery of the court of Mantua, but is well worth seeing for the Gilda of Tuuli Takala.

After his final opera, Falstaff (1893), Verdi founded a home for retired musicians. Director Christof Loy related these two achievements by setting the opera in the nursing home...