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As the Governess Alison Rose was the ideal suffering soprano, her eyes an imbroglio of psychological disturbances.

Iford's stone cloister makes a suitably eerie setting for a fine traditional account of Verdi's Macbeth, notable for its powerful male leads, from Iford Festival Opera and the CHROMA Ensemble.

Philip Venables' 4.48 Psychosis is the first musical adaptation of the eponymous play by Sarah Kane, which is the culmination of a three-year programme run jointly by the Royal Opera and Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Philip Pullman's exotic adventure about a girl determined to follow her father's footsteps gets a gently magical outing with Sri-Lankan inspired shadow puppetry and a strong cast. 

Two strongly atmospheric pieces create and hold a dreamy, intensely imaginative note on which to finish Tête à Tête for 2015. 

While it may seem perfectly formed for the full grand opera treatment, Verdi's classic Un ballo in maschera can also work extremely well on a small scale, as shown by this intimate and compelling treatment by Timothy Nelson at Iford. 

Through His Teeth is a gripping psychological drama. Bedford was commissioned by the Royal Opera House to write a piece on the subject of Faust, to run alongside the star-studded performances of Gounod’s opera on the main stage. Heartily recommended to anybody in need of an evening of modern drama and violence.

This week the Linbury Studio Theatre attracted an audience of the more minute variety with its dazzling production of The Firework-Maker’s Daughter. Based on Philip Pullman’s novel, the two-act opera transported its listeners into the realms of the Far East with papery costumes, Indonesian shadow puppetry and hand-crafted pyrotechnics.

Bampton Classical Opera is a company dedicated to performing rarely-performed 18th-century operas, and every summer they stage a new production with a cast of young and upcoming singers at their base in Bampton in Oxfordshire. This year’s production was a double-bill of French opéras comiques by Philidor and Grétry, which they brought to London’s St John’s Smith Square last week.