Performer: Michael Todd Simpson

The audience for The Met's first performance of La fanciulla del West this season arrived loaded for bear. Not only were they disappointed that Jonas Kaufmann was not singing (he's slated for shows starting 17th October), but their disappointment was heightened by the fact that tenor Yusif Eyvazov was singing.

Love may well be a rebellious bird, but that's as nothing to maverick director Dmitri Tcherniakov, whose twisted staging for Festival d'Aix reimagines Bizet's opera as a radical therapy session.

The thrills of Tudor (pseudo-)history and bel canto expressivity combine in the second of Donizetti's “Three Queens” operas, Maria Stuarda, making its company debut at Seattle Opera.