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Olena Tokar's assured coloratura made an immediate success of the waltz with her convincingly adolescent appearance, rhythmic verve and stylish phrasing.

A musically excellent and unpretentious performance of Puccini's masterpiece from Cardiff.

André Tchaikowsky's version of The Merchant of Venice combines his love of Shakespeare with his recollections of a harsh childhood as a Jew in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Adrian Partington directs a well-managed but ultimately disjointed performance of Mahler’s most idealistically challenging symphony.

Longborough Festival Opera have opted for Donizetti for the first time, with Don Pasquale.  How successful would the cast be at unleashing the ‘feel-good factor’ of opera buffa?

James MacMillan has honed his first opera Inés de Castro into an unmissable evening:  unspeakably gory but utterly thrilling.

Bringing Peter Grimes to Grange Park a year after the Britten centenary is an enormous challenge. With ‘Grimes on the Beach’ still fresh in the memory, the task of recreating the Suffolk coast in Hampshire’s idyllic countryside might have seemed a step too far.