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A fine singing cast gives creditable performances in Johann Stauss II's most famous operetta, but Paul Curran's updating of Act 2 to 1930s Berlin takes the fizz out of the Champagne.

In a setting that might be The Grange itself, a production which steadily tightens its grip until a blistering finish.

Fourth time around Paul Curran’s production of Tosca at the Canadian Opera Company is workmanlike and well sung, but lacks the necessary dramatic edge to be truly memorable.

Finally reaching the stage of the Venetian theatre, Benjamin Britten's first major opera meets with success thanks to Juraj Valčuha's conducting, Paul Curran's staging and an excellent cast.

Paul Curran's production of Carmen is entertaining and slick, with Paula Murrihy as a feisty heroine.

Britten's four lovers were costumed in quasi-contemporary, even glamorous manner, stripping to their underwear for the end of Act 2... so more Love Island than Ancient Athens.

Natalya Romaniw is a natural as our maligned heroine: Paul Curran creates staging of bewildering comic complexity and pulls it off with panache.

Good-time girl, hometown sweetheart, torn-apart lover, smugglers and rivals, familiar songs, a cliffhanger of a tale. 

Female voices dominate in the vocal cast: Rachel Willis-Sørensen debuts as Leonora and charms the audience; Anna Maria Chiuri has the temperament and rich vocality requested by the role of the gypsy.

Paul Curran's movie-Like Carmen for Opera Philadelphia

Semyon Bychkov turned in a magisterial account of Mussorgsky's rugged score, aided and abetted by some strong vocal performances.

Santa Fe Opera's colorful and beautifully sung The Golden Cockerel makes a case for more Rimsky-Korsakov opera in the repertoire.

Despite occasionally brilliant singing, the Norwegian National Opera fails to raise seasonal spirits with a dramatically inert Cavalleria rusticana and a shaky Pagliacci.

Roberto Abbado's precise conducting made the score tingle with life. The magical glissandi were full of mystery, the hotbed of musical detail cleanly communicated and the amorous outbursts treated with Italianate ardour.

Despite starry bel canto experts such as Joyce DiDonato, Lawrence Brownlee and maestro Michele Mariotti, a 2013 Paul Curran staging of Rossini’s La donna del lago reads vacuous on The Metropolitan Opera stage.

A glittering production of Rossini's retelling of the Cinderella fairy tale at the Teatro San Carlo. 

Britten’s final opera given an impressively atmospheric staging, ideally conceived for the small venue

A menacing rather than a bucolic setting for The Met's new production of La donna del lago, but the proof is in the singing... 

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that a Handel opera in pursuit of a happy ending must have a few twists and turns, and Ariodante has everything you would expect.

Imeneo (1740), Handel’s penultimate opera, is atypical on several fronts. It’s relatively short by Handel’s standards (three acts, under two hours of music); the plot is thin, but not as absurd or complicated as those of some of his other operas (there are no disguises, for example); the title role is composed for a bass; and the opera has a chorus which participates in the plot, rather than just

Nothing says “Happy Easter” like a bit of alcohol-fuelled murder on the church steps, right? With their new double bill of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, the Norwegian National Opera certainly seems to think so!The two productions were done on practically the same sets, albeit with a few differences, which did create a rather wonderful sense of continuity from the fir

Every opera should have at least one of those “wow” moments that lift you out of your seat and have you singing them in your head on the way home.

After the success of Benjamin Britten’s opera The Rape of Lucretia, Britten and director/librettist Eric Crozier discussed future operatic projects. The composer wanted his next opera to be a comedy and insisted that it be set in England. When Crozier suggested adapting Guy de Maupassant’s La Rosier de Madame Husson, Britten knew he was on to something good. Indeed, it was an ideal choice.

The message in Paul Curran's new production of Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tsar's Bride is a simple one: violent and powerful men are the same in every era. And, of course, no good can result from the violence. If the opera's title made you expect a happy and light-hearted occasion, think again: it's definitely not that sort of Royal Wedding.