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Lyric Opera of Kansas City ends its season with Garnett Bruce's blockbuster production of Puccini's Turandot. 

English National Opera opens its new season with a revival of David Alden's masterly production. 

When done as well as this, a "concert staging" is not oxymoronic, but a precise term for a valuable mode of presentation.

With fabulous solo singing from Pavol Breslik and Elsa Dreisig, Beethoven's only oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives turns out to be a gem. Sadly, the Berg Violin Concerto misses the mark.

The American must be one of the few tenors to tackle both Rossini and Verdi's Moor with success. 

Handel's oratorio Susanna is often considered to be less than consistently dramatic and this performance in the Halle Handel Festival did little to dispel that view.

After nearly two decades away from the Covent Garden stage, it was time Britten's Billy Budd came home, in a new production from Madrid by Deborah Warner. 

Sir Mark Elder conducts a memorable performance of Berlioz' masterpiece in Manchester's Bridgewater Hall.

Jonathan Miller's production of La bohème is revived by ENO and features an important house debut. 

ENO's new production of Salome which opens the season features some commendable music-making, but is let down by a flawed concept and dull staging.

This was a superbly assured performance in which Esa-Pekka Salonen marshalled his forces with a clear-sighted vision to carve out an account brimming with intensity, energy and commitment.

From the stately front of The Grange, an impressive moustache looms large, welcoming the audience to a production of Rossini's masterpiece that baffles, confuses and delights the audience.

Ivor Bolton and David McVicar have teamed up to create an unapologetically Brittenian Gloriana, with Anna Caterina Antonacci at the top of a great cast

Interesting ideas and a brilliant orchestral performance aren't enough to overcome a visually dull staging, predictable choreography and a lack of chemistry between the protagonists.

Lars Vogt, Royal Nothern Sinfonia and Chorus and a strong quartet of soloists bring the angelic tidings of peace and goodwill in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio.

A revival of Franco Zeffirelli’s 1981 production was graced by an impressive case, including the Met debut of soprano Angel Blue. 

Skelton's Florestan provides the power in a refined, elegant performance that brings out the beauty in Beethoven's score.

On a golden afternoon on the Wormsley estate, not everything on stage necessarily glittered, but there’s plenty of spirit in Annilese Miskimmon's production to entertain.

Billy Budd triumphs in Madrid thanks to an inspired orchestra, a solid cast and a dream team of stage magicians.

Edward Gardner paid a memorable visit to lead the Seattle Symphony in a transformative account of Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius.

William Kentridge's Lulu for ENO is easier to admire than it is to love. But if you want to be challenged dramatically, this is the opera to do it.

“Out of this wood do not desire to go!” Tytania orders Bottom. Glyndebourne's revival of Peter Hall's classic production of A Midsummer Night's Dream is eerily enchanting, weaving its spell right from the queasy double bass glissandos, which slither into Britten's score.

Ian Page assembled a fine cast, with a particularly good Leporello from David Soar for yet another superb performance of Mozart from Classical Opera.

A youthful Bellini opera able to stand on its own two feet? Perhaps not, as Adelson e Salvini gets the Opera Rara treatment. 

The coda to Juliet's "Convoi funèbre" crystallised all that was exceptional about this performance of Berlioz's symphonie dramatique.

The Chelsea Opera Group give a concert performance of Wagner's early opera Das Liebesverbot conducted by Anthony Negus.

Ailyn Bozok's minimlaist production of Delibes' Lakmé at Opera Holland Park contains much tender beauty and is carried by fine musical performances. 

“The very incarnation of vice” was how one critic described Célestine Galli-Marié’s Carmen at the opera’s 1875 Opéra Comique première. That description could equally be applied to Stéphanie d’Oustrac in Glyndebourne’s revival of David McVicar’s terrific production.

Zeffirelli's La Bohème at the Met never fails to charm. Balance issues aside, a beautifully sung performance by a very capable cast.

“He’s not an opera director. He’s a very naughty boy!” Three years after his surreal Damnation of Faust, Terry Gilliam tackles more Berlioz for English National Opera in the shape of Benvenuto Cellini, striking gold again.

Rudolf Frey's production of Nabucco for Welsh National Opera undercuts the solemnity and beauty of the opera, detracting from some fine performances. 

A riveting performance of Schoenberg's Moses und Aron, despite the absence of the golden calf, the burning bush, Sodom and Gomorrah. 

This BAM production of Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd, imported from Glyndebourne, achieves the rare distinction of making a great performance out of a decidedly mediocre work.

The silence at the end of the concert said it all. To have plunged the attention of the entire Royal Albert Hall into utter silence for a whole minute after the music has finished was an impressive feat. Such was the audience response to Mark Padmore’s closing walk down the back of the stage, as Captain Vere.

It’s so good to hear Tippett’s ravishing opera, The Midsummer Marriage, performed in full at the Proms, particularly in Britten’s centenary year. Tippet’s work is like an antidote to Britten’s drier, more literal operatic style – so overflowing with warmth, colour and hope.

You can view Britten’s Billy Budd as an opera about the failure of words. When the angelic sailor Billy is falsely accused by his superior office Claggart, his stammer prevents him from defending himself and he lashes out, fatally.

It wasn’t surprising that English National Opera’s UK première of The Perfect American was one of the most eagerly anticipated productions of the summer. Based on a fictitious narrative by Peter Stephan Jungk, the opera offers a timely glance behind the plush curtains of Walt Disney’s animated feature films.

In the celebratedly short time in which Rossini wrote The Barber of Seville, he got into a time capsule and took a short trip to twenty-first century London; on his return to 1816 Rome, he wrote the part of Rosina for Lucy Crowe's voice. Or at least, that's what it felt like at ENO last night, as Crowe turned in a performance which outstrips my ability to find superlatives.

Don Giovanni is perhaps the most difficult of the Mozart–Da Ponte opera trilogy to stage. Not only is there the problem of how exactly the Don is to be consumed in flames at the end of its three-hour span, or the issue of how to make the statue of the Commendatore come to life.