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Tragic love, deceit, retribution... and Plácido Domingo. Despite its darkness, the Wiener Staatsoper's revival of Simon Boccanegra makes for an enjoyable evening. 

Sir Bryn Terfel relishes every nuance of the text, but Damiano Michieletto's reading of Donizetti's comedy is no laughing matter. 

Top drawer singing and comic acting bring out the comedy in Laurent Pelly's light-hearted production

A solid cast led by Juan Diego Flórez revives Günther Rennert’s production, which still amuses after more than 400 performances. 

When an enormous black gondola creaks and shudders its way across the stage in the “Giulietta' act of the Royal Opera's Tales of Hoffmann, it acts as a metaphor for John Schlesinger's venerable production.

In Vienna State Opera's new production of Rigoletto, director Pierre Audi brings us close to a Rigoletto less freakish, more identifiably everyday. 

Aleksandra Kurzak delivers a top drawer performance as Fiorilla, leading a star-studded cast as Evelino Pidò gives us a lesson in how to conduct Rossini in the latest revival of Il turco in Italia.

It’s more than a little surprising that Francesco Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur is first gracing the stage of the Staatsoper in 2014, 112 years after its première.It is, therefore, disappointing that this co-production with Covent Garden is not more successful, despite its many excellent qualities.

In this Royal Opera production of Gounod's Faust, there's no question about who's in charge. Not only does the devil get all the best lines, but he bosses the show from beginning to end. Clad in feathered hat, long curly wig and reminiscent of the Laughing Cavalier, René Pape plays Mephistopheles quite superbly, alternating between mercurial bouffe comic lines and extreme sardonic nastiness.

Read our review of Mary Zimmerman's production of Bellini's La Sonnambula in its 2009 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.