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Bieito’s Carmen is now a mainstay of ENO's repertoire, but with an excellent central cast led by Sean Panikkar and Justina Gringytė, the production feels entirely fresh. 

It is a thing of wonder that Roberto Devereux is one of Donizetti’s lesser known works. Whether on account of its challenging soprano part, or its fussy Tudor setting, it is rarely performed, but contains some of the composer’s most beautiful – and indeed memorable – arias and duets.

The Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra present two works at the Berwaldhallen that both look to the past and future.

Colour and light from Ludovic Morlot and the CBSO in Debussy and Ravel, but it was the power and depth of Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 that shone the brightest.

When the entire plot is triggered by a freak accident, you can't blame director David Pountney for making Fate itself one of the key characters.  

Concluding its "Belief and Beyond Belief" series, the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Yazushi Ono also completes its 2016-2017 concert season. 

Laughter is indeed the best medicine. As we try and make sense of the continuing political fallout post EU referendum, the CBSO offered the perfect prescription in the ample form of Verdi's Falstaff.

Justina Gringyte is a fabulous Carmen in Scottish Opera's dark take on this most tuneful of operas. Large choruses, including children with cigarettes, and a strong supporting cast make this an enjoyable show.

Calixto Bieito  updates the Carmen to the final years of Franco’s dictatorship and in Joan Anton Rechi’s revival, the results are often gritty and fierce, if unlikely to do anything for the Spanish tourist trade.

Chelsea Opera Group presents the strongest case imaginable for Massenet’s Le Roi de Lahore, with Michael Spyres, no less, as the King. 

A prelude that was pedestrian rather than portentous signalled Maurizio Benini’s approach to Rigoletto: Verdi as aural Ovaltine, tucked up in cosy dressing gown and slippers.

Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the Philharmonia in a fine account of Mahler's mighty “Symphony of a Thousand”, culminating in a dramatic realisation of Faust's redemption.

Rudolf Frey's production of Nabucco for Welsh National Opera undercuts the solemnity and beauty of the opera, detracting from some fine performances. 

Last night’s opening of Christopher Alden’s allusive, conceptual Rigoletto for ENO, a co-production with Canadian Opera Company, was a notable event for London opera. Musically, ENO have been on top of their game this season and last night was no exception.

From Studio to Stage was the name of this year’s summer performance by young artists on the Jette Parker programme at the Royal Opera House. The programme includes not only singers but also conductors/répétiteurs, a pianist, a lighting designer and stage director Pedro Ribeiro, who surely wins the prize for best headshot.

In 1971, the thirty year-old Placido Domingo made his Covent Garden début as Cavaradossi in Puccini's Tosca and in the intervening forty years, he has given two hundred and thirty performances in more than twenty-five roles for Royal Opera House audiences.

La production de 2008 donne lieu à une belle reprise sous la direction impeccable de Susanna Mälkki, avec une distribution dominée par Ben Bliss dans le rôle de Tom Rakewell.

Madama Butterfly se presenta en Gran Teatre del Liceu en la producción de Leiser y Caurier en una velada con cambios en el reparto que Jorge de León y María Teresa Leva resolvieron por todo lo alto.

Un notable reparto vocal y un cantante leyenda para una producción de claroscuros.