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A marathon double bill using music from Verdi's early operas largely falls flat in Brussels. 

The composer's powerful When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd anchored a thought-provoking program led by Michael Stern.

A dearth of nuance affects this new production of Verdi's late masterpiece in Berlin, set in Sir John's gourmet kitchen. 

Carried by a handful of standout performances, Britten’s story of madness and infection comes into its own in 2021, in the Opéra National du Rhin's clever and inventive staging. 

To outwit death and attain immortality is a dream as old as human history. But isn’t it precisely the finite nature of life that makes it so precious?

Here was the much-loved three-act opera Rigoletto, yes, but chances are, it was one far beyond Verdi’s wildest dreams.

M – a city searches for a murderer, by Moritz Eggert and Barrie Kosky, receives its world premiere at the Komische Oper Berlin.

With a stunningly inventive and modern-sounding score, strong acting performances and a staging full of theatrical illusion and coherent in spite of general weirdness, Aix's Fiery Angel impresses.

This summer’s production of Bizet’s Carmen on the Seebühne stage in Bregenz offers a great spectacle. 

Ermonela Jaho sure likes to put herself (and us) through the emotional wringer on Covent Garden's stage. This time, London finally got to see her as another tragic Puccini heroine: Madama Butterfly.

Re-imagining this opera with Prince Gremin as the show-stealer was no doubt a happy accident.

The Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra gives a patrician performance of Verdi’s Macbeth and Scott Hendricks is riveting in Andrea Breth’s claustrophobic exploration of oppression and derangement.