Desperate Housewives and Troy Boys

Mozart’s original The Magic Flute is bizarre enough. The story of a prince and a bird-catcher’s journey to save a princess they’ve never met from a sinister quasi-Freemason who turns out to be alright, it is sufficiently packed full of great songs and good humour to have become an enduring repertory favourite – but that doesn’t mean it makes any sense. It doesn’t, really. It is a daft opera.

They say that Violetta in La Traviata is one of opera's hardest soprano parts. Violetta changes character completely over the opera's three acts – all the way from voracious party girl to delicate, dying consumptive – and the singer must be in complete control of the role to make this work. The musical part, of course, is hardly easy either.

Un Vivaldi de sorprendente vigor teatral cierra en el Teatro Real la gira europea de la Freiburger Barockorchester bajo la batuta de René Jacobs.

Les Arts triunfa con una deslumbrante Salomé, a la par que terriblemente humana. 

El Teatro de la Zarzuela recupera una ópera bufa de Manuel García en la que la gitanilla de Sabina Puértolas enamora.

Andrés Salado dirige La traviata con buen equilibrio y riqueza orquestal, producción de la Fundació Òpera Catalunya en la que destacó Tina Gorina, por su naturalidad y dominio de la voz.