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Movement was so effectively utilised in this production, with elements of ballet, modern and Scottish folk melded in true Agnes de Mille fashion.

Movable walls, some adorned with Baroque frescoes, partition the stage in ways that remind the viewer of the easy proximity of the masters and servants' quarters in Almaviva's estate.

Manon, Mimi, Tosca and Cio-Cio San. Why does Puccini send these women to such heartless deaths? It’s a question which musicologist Mosco Carner answered in the 1950s with a speculative Freudian reduction (the composer apparently had a debilitating mother complex).

The Volksoper Wien’s first-rate production of “Die Csárdásfürstin” (“The Csárdás Princess”) offers a rare chance to waltz through one of operetta’s most tuneful hits. Emmerich Kálmán’s score, to a libretto by Béla Jenbach, is a frothy concoction of romance, hedonism, and too much time spent in nightclubs.