Intérprete: Anthony Michaels-Moore

Calixto Bieito’s new production of Verdi’s The Force of Destiny for English National Opera is – for him – a tame affair. 

There was a nod to John Adams in the score, but also a kind of edgy Americana, complete with powerful writing for male chorus, and an attempt to communicate the flavor of rural North Carolina, not far from where Higdon grew up.

The auditorium's lights flared up, drawing a blinking audience back into the room. The fourth wall was well and truly broken, and each of us was given no option but to acknowledge our responsibility for the planet.

Two years ago, when this controversial production by Peter Konwitschny was first seen at English National Opera, I was completely knocked sideways by it. Could it deliver the same emotional blow to the solar plexus this time around?

“It is not his trial, it is mine, mine. It is I whom the devil awaits.” Richard Croft's Vere leads an outstanding cast in LA Opera's revival of Billy Budd.

Read our review of John Doyle's production of Britten's Peter Grimes in its 2008 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.