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Dorset Opera Festival's bold decision to programme Massenet's obscure opera about a medieval Castilian hero proves to be a major success.

It's not easy to imagine a freezing Parisian attic when you're in the middle of the rolling Dorset countryside in a baking summer, but Dorset Opera's excellent production of Puccini's La bohème is atmospheric enough to do so.

Longborough Festival Opera’s new production of Wagner’s Tannhäuser is impressive vocally but particularly distinguished by Anthony Negus’s intelligent and vital conducting.

David Alden’s muddled clichés failed to convince all the time, but Edward Gardner steered us through a thrilling musical account of Tchaikovsky’s terrific opera.

Two years ago, when this controversial production by Peter Konwitschny was first seen at English National Opera, I was completely knocked sideways by it. Could it deliver the same emotional blow to the solar plexus this time around?

“Beware, my Lord, of jealousy” warns Iago, planting the seed of doubt in Otello’s mind. Beware, too, the dangers of preconceptions. Keen anticipation of this new production of Verdi’s Otello was tempered by the prospect of David Alden as director.

Rapturously romantic, intimate, moving, unforgettable: more English summer opera should be like Iford. And the garden is like Narnia in the spring. 

“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.

After their Mascagni debut last year, with L’amico Fritz (the composer’s first post-Cavalleria opera), Opera Holland Park have set out to uncover more music from the so-called ‘one-hit-wonder’ – still known to most for his smash verismo opera alone.

Alfredo Catalani's La Wally is the last of three rarely performed Italian operas from the late 19th century verismo period to feature in Opera Holland Park's 2011 season. Catalani belongs to group of composers whose place in the modern repertoire suffers from the problem of "not being Puccini," the more poignantly since he was born in Puccini's home town of Lucca.

Regisseur Stefano Simone Pintor schafft ein Paradebeispiel für die Verbindung der guten alten Oper mit unserer Gegenwart.