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The director drains the life out of an impassioned opera with a staging devoid of authenticity and ideas.

Mark-Anthony Turnage's operatic adaptation of Thomas Vinterberg's tale of abuse provides rich entertainment even as it shocks.

Singing performances are excellent, the staging is well crafted and Stravinsky's eclectic score entertains from start to finish. But it's an evening's opera that doesn't touch the soul.

A forgettable Hansel and Gretel is the worst offence of Antony McDonald’s leaden staging which returns to Covent Garden. 

A strong revival cast, conducted by Dalia Stasevska, demonstrate why Sir Peter Hall's 1981 vintage staging of Britten’s A Midsummer Night's Dream is such a classic. 

A potent rendering of Alban Berg's tale of the traumatised and impoverished war veteran.

Michael Grandage's vivid production of Mozart's comic masterpiece is fast becoming a classic and is revived here to a very high standard.

Deborah Warner's intelligent new Covent Garden staging provides the perfect backdrop for a strong singing cast in Britten's maritime masterpiece.

A memorable performance makes a worthy memorial to the late, great Bernard Haitink, who conducted the production's premiere. 

An evening of musical optimism launches the 2021 Edinburgh International Festival with a burst of light and colour.

Benjamin Britten's final opera hasn't been staged by The Royal Opera in over 25 years, but his setting of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice receives a great new production by Sir David McVicar. 

William Alwyn's operatic take on Strindberg is rarely performed – a complete mystery considering this excellent concert staging at the Barbican by the BBCSO under Sakari Oramo.

Mezzo-soprano Rachel Kelly and soprano Susanna Hurrell were the eponymous pair and, my, how they chewed the scenery.

The Linbury re-opens its doors to opera with a new work whose libretto is superbly crafted by Francesca Simon, featuring a tour de force performance by Marta Fontanals-Simmons as the Norse goddess Hel.

Shostakovich's early masterpiece is fêted at the Komische Oper Berlin

The Royal Opera Orchestra produce a revelatory reading of Shostakovich’s eclectic score; a fine performance from Eva-Maria Westbroek and excellent acting from the whole cast light up the drama and farce.

I arrived at the Royal Opera House in the usual way, settled into my seat, and – could you believe it – the opera was gone!

Dmitri Tcherniakov turns Shostakovich's "satirical tragedy" into a riveting piece of theatre, help by an outstanding performance from Patricia Racette and a top class orchestral performance from new ENO Musical Director Mark Wigglesworth.

A fine new edition of Mozart's Requiem recieves its UK première, overshadowed by a trenchant Sibelius Fourth from Opera North under Jac van Steen.

A beautiful and much-put-upon princess, a pair of royal lovers who have never met, a scheming mother, and a pirate who is a prince in disguise: Ottone is a feast of ideas, beauty and fun. 

To end the 2012/13 season, Scottish Opera has teamed up with the D’Oyly Carte Company to create a crisp new production of The Pirates of Penzance, which heads off to England and Wales after touring Scotland.

An orgy of British music greeted an appreciative audience at the Barbican last night courtesy of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by British music enthusiast John Wilson. But it certainly wasn’t all Land of Hope and Glory, or indeed The Lark Ascending, with three contrasting pieces – all now sadly neglected in the concert hall.Walton’s Scapino overture really set things in motion with a bang.

“Community, exclusion, rejection and desire”, writes director Christopher Rolls about English Touring Opera’s production of Albert Herring. “Doesn’t sound like a recipe for an uproarious comedy does it? And the key thing about Herring is that it is very very funny.

This week, the annual London Handel Festival, now in its 34th year, opened with a new production of his opera Rodelinda.

If anyone tells you that all opera is highbrow, Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld provides you with a perfect example of the opposite. It's coarse, raunchy, fast, fun, and continually pokes fun at the conventions of grand opera.