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They came for Javier Camarena, but cheered Giulia Mazzola to the rafters of the Teatro Donizetti as the third production of this year's festival opens. 

The Teatro di San Carlo opens its season with Vasily Barkhatov directing a Gen X mish-mash take on Puccini's final opera. 

Audience protests against Roberto Abbado interrupt the opening night of the festival, Yannis Kokkos' staging of La forza del destino.

Gaëlle Arquez, in one of her infrequent wanderings into Italian bel canto, leads a cast of Rossini specialists under the baton of Ottavio Dantone.

Donizetti's music in this early opera has the freshness and liveliness of his most mature comic works, but l barbiere di Siviglia and La Cenerentola were just a few years before, as one could easily perceive.

A production apt for audiences who prefer a traditional, intimate staging of the most often performed of all operatic works.

Diego Fasolis gives an enlightened, 18th-century account of the Mozart/da Ponte masterpiece, with great precision and elegance.

The Mediterranean setting of Auber's work is recreated by director Giorgio Barberio Corsetti with its intriguing teatro-immagine, where video projections and virtual reality are predominant.

Not a particularly revealing Falstaff, but a pleasing performance though. Maybe one would have expected something of greater impact from a festival like this one, but that goal had already accomplished by Graham Vick with his Stiffelio the night before...

A revival of a traditional staging,  with great singers and full of dramatic energy

Good overall singing, but the Steinberg's conducting was completely subordinate to the stage directions.