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

Foccroulle’s limited score imitates environmental catastrophe while Jocelyn’s libretto tries – unevenly – to understand why we might ignore it.

Barbara Hannigan is better than ever in Krzysztof Warlikowski's iconic Lulu at La Monnaie – an historic event.

A highly satisfying level of polish in La Monnaie's stream in which one recognizes a precisely executed live performance at its core – one that would be thrilling to experience in person. 

Dmitri Tcherniakov's staging turns Rimsky-Korsakov's opera into storytelling for an autistic boy, but does he deliver a fairy tale ending? 

Laurent Pelly exploits the satirical side of Rimsky-Korsakov's The Golden Cockerel at La Monnaie in a darkly humorous but colourfully performed production.

Strauss' 'conversation piece' of an opera is given a warmly sympathetic production with the musical rewards coming as much from the pit as the stage.

Sometimes catching a performance with its second cast can be as revealing as attending a first night, and that was the case with this production of Rigoletto by the Canadian director Robert Carsen at La Monnaie in Brussels.

In Pierre Audi’s new production of Handel’s Orlando, currently running at La Monnaie in Brussels (until 12 May, and thereafter available free online on their website for three weeks), the knight Orlando is portrayed as a modern-day fireman who in his fascination with fire has become an arsonist – “pyromane” as Audi explains in the programme.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Scorned womanhood has no better archetype than Euripides's Medea. And you're unlikely to see a more powerful or affecting Medea than Nadja Michael's performance in Cherubini's opera Médée, in the first production of the new season at La Monnaie in Brussels (De Munt, if you're a Flemish speaker.)Like all good Greek tragedy, we all know the story.