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The Bayerische Staatsoper's new Tristan und Isolde, featuring two stellar role debuts, is scenically disappointing but musically superb. 

The Bavarian State Opera avoids the routine in a powerfully cast revival of Richard Jones' building-site production of Lohengrin.

Jonas Kaufmann and Anja Harteros, the “Royal couple” of the Bayerische Staatsoper, enchant and melt hearts as the doomed lovers in Verdi’s late masterpiece.

This year’s revival of Andreas Homoki's production features excellent principals, choruses, and sublime orchestration under Fabio Luisi’s seasoned baton. The staging takes far fewer accolades.

Anja Harteros takes a while to hit her stride in a Don Carlo that doesn't quite gel.

With superb singing from Harteros, Salsi and Kaufmann, this production makes a strong case for Andrea Chénier’s continued presence in the repertoire.

Deutsche Oper Berlin's concert performance of Act 1 of Die Walküre was an occasion to savor with Anja Harteros making her role debut as Sieglinde. 

Daniele’s Abbado’s black-box production of Don Carlo augurs a crash landing with no survivors.

Otto Schenk's Vienna production of Der Rosenkavalier has been mounted 366 times since its 1968 inauguration and there is definitely no demand for a new one.

Better conducting and supertitles would also help breathe life into this drab revival of Bayerische Staatsoper's Don Carlo.

Martin Kušej's production of La forza del destino is hard hitting and intelligent: an imperfect orchestral performance is more than compensated for by an outstanding cast of singers.

Although technical problems threatened to undermine this production, Anja Harteros' Elsa and Klaus Florian Vogt's Lohengrin transcended all.

Nothing will make the plot of Il trovatore less ridiculous. But a director who embraces that ridiculousness, plus stellar playing and singing, make for a great show.

Martin Kušej’s modern production of La forza del destino emphasizes that familial and religious oppressions can be one and the same, destroying the love of free spirits.      

The duo toss off three encores before breezing off into the night, sending their audience off to their beds, already completely and utterly satisfied. 

Verdi’s Don Carlo – the four-act Italian version – at the Deutsche Oper combines strong singing and acting with lush music in an evening that, despite its beauty, is not without its faults.

There were some not-to-be-missed performances last evening in Verdi’s Otello at the Staatsoper.Dmitri Hvorostovsky is a god amongst men whose interpretation of Iago, Otello’s villainous ensign, was completely on the mark. Resplendent in his white ponytail, black leather and tattoos, he completely embodied the treacherous scoundrel bent on Otello’s destruction.

The first opera of the season at La Scala is an event of huge cultural significance in Italy, so it raised some hackles when, for Giuseppe Verdi’s centenary year, the management passed over Verdi in favour of Wagner’s Lohengrin. But even Italians disappointed by the insult to their culture found it impossible to quarrel with the quality of the singing talent on show.

Faith and glamour have bookended this year’s Salzburg Festival, a move met with incredulity in certain quarters and yet one not entirely alien to Austrian customs, if one looks to the 20 or so most glittering events of the Viennese ball season, which is promptly curtailed by Ash Wednesday (still observed by much of the population here with high Catholic asceticism).

Giuseppe Verdi and Arrigo Boito's Otello is renowned as one of the few truly successful Shakespearean operas, and while it's mostly a masterpiece on its own terms rather than Shakespeare's – countless scenes and characters are cut, and the very Verdian drinking song goes on far longer than you'd probably expect – there remains a hint of the brilliance of characterisation with which Shakespeare's p