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It is unlikely that anyone went home from this soul-inspiring performance without that famous "Ode" ringing in his or her head.

Jean-Louis Martinoty’s scenically seductive Don Giovanni comes as a welcome relief from recent Regietheater aberrations. 

Singing at short notice, Luis Gomes made a fine partner for Ekaterina Siurina at another superb recital in the Rosenblatt Recital series.

Beautiful sets and a fine cast led by Guillaume Tourniaire can't quite compensate for the dramatic weaknesses in Opera Australia's new production of Bizet's Les pêcheurs de perles.

In Vienna State Opera's new production of Rigoletto, director Pierre Audi brings us close to a Rigoletto less freakish, more identifiably everyday. 

The Merry Wives of Windsor – relocated to Scotland – sing beautifully, as does their wooer, Falstaff. But it's not clear why they're in Scotland in the first place, or how the rest of the staging fits the opera.

If you let yourself be transported to director David Bösch’s strange world, you'll find an Elisir d'amore that is heartbreaking and uplifting by turns.

Strong playing and singing aren't enough to make the Bayerische Staatsoper's Rigoletto a compelling evening out.

Georges Bizet’s first major opera, composed and performed in Paris when he was a mere 25, has the dubious distinction of being both a success and a flop, depending on who is asked. Audiences at the première loved it, but critics panned it.

How, I wonder, is it best for an opera company to treat a revival of a well-aired, well-liked, decent but not particularly radical production of a top ten opera? This was what the Royal Opera had to contend with in this season’s revival of David McVicar’s 2003 setting of Die Zauberflöte: many in the audience will have known every note of the opera, and several will have been thoroughly familiar wi

Don Giovanni is perhaps the most difficult of the Mozart–Da Ponte opera trilogy to stage. Not only is there the problem of how exactly the Don is to be consumed in flames at the end of its three-hour span, or the issue of how to make the statue of the Commendatore come to life.

Verdi's Rigoletto is a work of contrasts. The Duke is equally at home in a glittering palace or a tawdry brothel (a historically accurate characterisation of King Francis I of France, on whom his character is based); his romantic ballads are juxtaposed with the musical depiction of violent storms. Pretty courtly dances share the stage with powerful orchestral evocations of impending doom.

Murder. Suicide. Grand larceny. Puccini's triptych of short operas, two tragedies followed by a riotous farce, always makes for an evening of variety, with the potential for many snatches of greatness.

If you believe that true happiness can be found in music, I have a recipe for you to follow. Take a funny story of disguise, sham and mock marriage and set it to great music. Add a quartet of bel canto stars (a lyric tenor, a coloratura soprano, a baritone and a bass) and dress them in spectacular 17th century costumes. Add pantomime artists, masked dancers and a chorus.

Puccini's Il Trittico, performed last night at the Opéra Bastille in Paris, is a unique item in the repertoire: a series of three one act operas with little to link them except the composer's conceit of what would work together in an evening. Each opera clocks in at something under an hour, and despite the relatively short duration, each has plenty of time to develop its characters.