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The new production of Les Contes d’Hoffmann explores the gothic, magical nature of the story, with a solid cast led by Chaslin’s somewhat heavy baton.

The COC revival of its 2016 production of Le nozze di Figaro is still rooted in Claus Guth’s gloomy Scandinavia but it’s lightened up to become much sexier and funnier.

Stephen Lawless' production of Donizetti’s whimsical comedy begins well and improves as it goes, with sparkling performances from an international cast.

Phelim McDermott’s Coney Island Così fan tutte returns to The Met, in sparkling vocal performances. 

Barrie Kosky's divisive production returns to The Royal Opera but has lost its zing. 

The biting wit of Vincenzo Grimani's libretto is well served by some knockout arias and excellent performances from a strong cast and the matchless Il pomo d'oro.

From opera to Broadway to song, an entertaining recital in Boston... minus any tenors! 

Despite a great cast led by Marina Rebeka, La Fura dels Baus's unambitious approach to the myth of Faust and Dan Ettinger's noisy conducting prevent a brighter season opening at the Teatro Real.

Under Andris Nelsons' baton, the musical canvas was remarkably supple with proper light shed on Puccini’s melodic inventiveness and wondrous orchestration.

Chung's mastery of orchestral colour and texture came into its own, the brooding introduction to Act 2 making for a harrowingly apocalyptic representation of tyranny.

Even without stage machinery or sets, The English Concert’s performance of Handel’s Rinaldo was enchanting. 

There were plenty of vocal fireworks in this concert performance of Handel’s opera. 

Jean-Louis Martinoty’s scenically seductive Don Giovanni comes as a welcome relief from recent Regietheater aberrations. 

Under elegant leadership of conductor Harry Bicket, the Met's revival of the "Marriage of Figaro" succeeds with a strong ensemble of cast.

Roberto Abbado leads a strong cast in an inspired production by La Fura del Baus.

Robert Carsen's Don Giovanni cannot burn in a hell in which he does not believe. 

As it turned out, the second performance of the Met’s revival of I puritani was the one to see – it offered some of this season’s greatest singing – and a surprise.

Any production of Le nozze di Figaro in which both Marcellina and Barbarina give star performances is ensemble casting at its finest.

According to director Sven-Eric Bechtolf,  Don Giovanni’s divine retribution for a life of pure evil and insatiable fornication is just more of the same.

A bird's-eye view of Gustavo Dudamel's opening concert in the LA Phil's Mozart-Pärt cycle.

Mozart’s beauty asserted but never implied, Sir Richard Eyre’s Le nozze di Figaro brings grand complications in bright turns and quick wit.

What makes this Figaro memorable and admirable is the way it manages both to be sprightly in its tone and details and also luxuriant in places that another director might have blown through.

In Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, Figaro and his bride-to-(maybe)-be Susannah share their ups and downs, but in San Francisco Opera's revival production directed by Robin Guarino, it was evident they would be a veritable match made in heaven.

A rich showcase of bel canto Romantic tragedy, this renewal of the Giancarlo del Monaco production made a vehicle for insights into jealousy, conscience, and deviousness “on a Royal scale”.

There aren’t too many more ambitious pieces of music one could choose to celebrate a birthday than Beethoven's Missa solemnis.

In this minimalist period production of Figaro, the singing and acting are the centre of attention. A very talented cast carries the show, delivering beautiful singing and engaging comedy.

Bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni, in splendid voice and with great eloquence, traces the development of the Lied from Mozart to Schubert at the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ in Amsterdam.

A classical setting and a varying degree of vocal and dramatic success for Mozart's miraculous score to Le nozze di Figaro.

The Met’s playful production of Rossini’s great, loveable and busy La Cenerentola is back and in excellent hands. Joyce DiDonato's Cinderella, singing the role at the Met for the first time is perfect.

In Amsterdam, the Italian opera singer Luca Pisaroni proves he is an outstanding interpreter of Lieder by Liszt.

If Count Almaviva (to say nothing of Don Giovanni) were alive today, he might perhaps enlist Richard Dawkins to defend his behaviour. We know from evolutionary biology that the male stands the best chance of passing on his genes if he has many partners, the female if she can keep the male around to help raise the children he’s had with her.

Are there musical works, even pieces generally considered to be masterpieces, that no longer can catch the listening public’s interest, no matter how expertly they are performed? I have been wrestling with this question since this weekend’s Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus performance of Haydn’s The Seasons.

With the business situation in the recording industry being what it is, studio recordings of operas are more or less ruled out. The positive side of this is that the general public gets the chance to be part of concerts that are recorded and enjoy the tension such an event creates more often.

Handel’s Radamisto has an improbable plot (although average by Baroque opera standards) which can make it difficult to stage. The most recent staging in London was the ENO production in 2010, which had a largely abstract setting.

Although written many years before Rossini's The Barber of Seville, the story of The Marriage of Figaro is in fact the sequel to that of the later opera. This farcical masterpiece of the opera buffa style was the first of three operas Mozart worked on with the Italian librettist Lorenzo da Ponte and was a risky undertaking.

“It’s magic!” Whether through Disney cartoons, renowned illusionists, or smartphones, visual magic continues to delight contemporary audiences. Three hundred years ago in 18th-century London, audiences were stunned by Handel’s all-new operatic extravaganza Rinaldo, which not only featured a top-notch cast, but also the latest and greatest special effects.

Read our review of Phelim McDermott's production of The Enchanted Island by Jeremy Sams in its 2008 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.

Read our review of Michael Grandage's production of Don Giovanni by Mozart, in its 2011 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.

London audiences had never seen anything quite like it. Fireworks, fountains and live sparrows were just a few of the special effects livening up the premiere of Handel's Rinaldo way back in 1711, prompting the Spectator's critic to compare it sniffily to a Punch and Judy show. Fast forward two hundred years, and you might wonder if there's been any progress.

To Glyndebourne, for the opening night of Handel's Rinaldo, the first of his operas to be staged in London in 1711, when he was just 26 years old.