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Annabel Arden’s production provides joyous comedy, with vocal and orchestral performances of the very finest.

A revival of Mariame Clément's production of Rossini's less-loved comic gem provides the sense of Italian sun to warm the body and belly laughs to warm the soul.

Martin G Berger exhaustively reworks the story and the libretto of Salieri's Cublai, gran kan de' Tartari and throws the kitchen sink at this new production, but not everything lands well. 

Two outstanding performances by young singers light up a splendidly crafted revival of Caurier and Leiser's colourful production.

A lively and amusing Barbiere at the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, with Daniele Gatti expertly marshalling the talents of Ruzil Gatin, Vasilisa Berzhanskaya, Nicola Alaimo and Fabio Capitanucci in Damiano Michieletto's colourfully minimalist staging.

The Maggio Musicale Fiorentino’s proposal is fully commendable, as they restored an opera rarely performed

The Donizetti Opera festival continues its remarkable initiative to stage every opera on its bicentennial.

Three Russian singers star in a revival of the Italian director's academy production from 2003. 

Delights both sugary and strange in this revival of La Cenerentola by Welsh National Opera.

La bohème at the New National Theatre Tokyo, performed by a fine cast and orchestra.

The Madrid opera house ends the year with a production of Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore from Damiano Michieletto, transporting the action to a noisy Mediterranean beach.

It may have taken Verdi’s bicentennial to bring Falstaff back to the San Francisco Opera, but at last the knight has returned to the company’s stage for the first time in over a decade...

Take one hapless but lovable hero, one capricious but ultimately vulnerable heroine, a doctor and an army officer straight out of commedia dell’arte, a couple of basso buffo patter songs, at least one memorable romantic ballad, and stir the lot into a good lashing of boisterous Italian music with a sprinkling of furtive tears.

David McVicar’s production of Berlioz’s opera Les Troyens at the Royal Opera House last month was notable for several reasons. Firstly, stellar vocal performances from world-class lead singers; secondly, brilliant acting; thirdly, ravishing music; and lastly, a memorable set – including a curious giant horse and human made out of what looked like scrap weapons and tools.

It's one of the most famous, most studied, most archetypal passages in epic poetry: in Book I of Virgil's Aeneid, the Trojans, exhausted from their voyage and desolate at the loss of their city, gaze down on the city of Carthage as it rises from the African soil, its people scurrying like worker bees in their manifold tasks.

After years of opera going, is it really still possible for me to be moved to tears by a tenor’s wail at the sight of a consumptive heroine dying tunefully in her bed at the end of the last act? I didn’t think so, but on the basis of last night’s Covent Garden performance of La Bohème, the answer would appear to be yes.