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Amartuvshin Enkhbat and María José Siri spar as father and daughter in Günter Krämer's tired production of Verdi's biblical epic. 

Both the staging and the music of the Bayerische Staatsoper's Traviata disappoint.

Munich revives La traviata showcasing Diana Damrau, who is growing into one of the best Violettas to grace the opera stage today.

La Juive, Fromental Halévy's grand opéra, makes a powerful return to Gothenburg, the same city where it received its Swedish première 150 years ago, in Günther Krämer’s stark staging. 

The Magic Flute at the Deutsche Oper Berlin is an interesting, well-sung and well-performed classic. Set in an agrarian world where Sarastro is less a high priest than he is a benevolent farmer-king, Günter Krämer’s 1991 production does not subvert the opera’s problems so much as it highlights them.

For those who view Wagner’s Ring Cycle in symphonic terms, Siegfried is often described as the third movement Scherzo: an episode of comedy in between the existential musings of Die Walküre and the action-packed, apocalyptic Götterdämerung. Last night’s performance at the Opéra Bastille in Paris gave us plenty of high comedy and much more besides.

La Traviata is such a warhorse that we often forget how many issues it raises for presenting a staging that can convince us of what is in the first analysis a quite ludicrous story, despite Verdi's veristic intentions.