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Stephen Gould is less than convincing in the lead role of Tannhäuser, but excellent ensemble work under Ádám Fischer's inspired direction offers compensations.

Sir David McVicar's production of Tristan und Isolde premiered at the Wiener Staatsoper in 2013, and was then recognized as a friendly platform for singers. Here it is freshly revived with a new cast.

Mehta's refusal to treat these as episodic statements gave the playing its polish. The music unravelled in a spun-out yarn.

Tim Albery's 2010 production of Tannhäuser, receiving its first revival at Covent Garden, begins with a stylish opening 20 minutes, but thereafter things become rather bland. 

With clear direction and well-executed hits (such as the lush trio from the end of the third act), the show will appeal to those with nostalgia for the production and wish to escape the biting cold with the sound of strings warmed by horns.

A modern updating of Vasco da Gama's discovery of a sea route to India? Vera Nemirova's stylish production of Meyerbeer's Grand Opéra works inteligently for the most part. 

Harry Kupfer updates the action of Der Rosenkavalier to the early 20th century in an evocative production for the Salzburg Festival.

Robert Carsen’s production is an exercise in extreme minimalism. Dialogues des Carmélites is a great opera, and this production touches greatness without quite grasping it in both hands. 

In Francisco Negrin’s production of Massenet’s Werther, currently at the Lyric Opera, the opera’s first scene appears through a semi-transparent screen upon which an image of a row of houses is projected. Then the screen rises, and we enter fully into the dream.

Otto Schenk's production of Der Rosenkavalier is now four decades old but it still looks quite fresh, its opulence unfaded.

Boy falls in love with girl. Girl marries another man. Boy kills himself. The plot of Massenet's Werther isn't exactly complex or taxing, but then, in all great stories, it's the way you tell them that counts.The story certainly worked for its author. When it was published in 1774, The Sorrows of Young Werther propelled the young Goethe to fame and caused a literary sensation.