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A new opera at the National Theater takes on a tragic chapter of communist history with mixed success.

This Paris production of The Snow Maiden proves that director Dmitri Tcherniakov is today's greatest champion of Rimsky-Korsakov's operas. 

Zemlinsky's tortured take on Oscar Wilde's Birthday of the Infanta is given a harrowing treatment; Aleš Briscein convinces as the dwarf of the title.

As always in the librettos of the time, the historical events are just a weak excuse to stage timeless stories of jealousy, struggle for power, sexual desire – the ingredients in today's television series.

La gazza ladra celebrates its 200th anniversary with a new production at La Scala, an earthbound effort from director Gabriele Salvatores, but it was Riccardo Chailly who drew the wrath of sections of the Milanese audience. 

Hindemith's opera, based on the life and theories of Johannes Kepler, is impressively realised by the Landestheater

A night of Egyptian musical and scenic splendour.

Octogenarian maestro Elio Boncompagni has dug deep into the plethora of Don Carlos partiture and come up with a precious musical treasure. Derek Gimpel's direction disappoints.

A reading full of emotion from conductor Juraj Valčuha sets up one of the best San Carlo Orchestra’s performances of this season.

One wonders why Emma Dante's concept, which explores the plight of women crushed by romantic catastrophes, is not done more often.

Powerful performances in Götz Friedrich's Deutsche Oper production. 

Zubin Mehta's conducting is a disappointment, but Guth's remarkable production makes powerful sense of Strauss and Hofmannsthal's rich fairy tale. 

Magisterial playing and conducting underpin an outstanding, engrossing evening of Wagner at the Schiller Theater.

Jennifer France and Nicholas Lester are a compelling double act in Rossini’s sparkling comedy La scala di seta from Scottish Opera in Concert.

The charm of Gaetano Donizetti’s spirited two-act L’elisir d’amore lies in its mixture of sharp comedy and poignant pathos. Zurich gave us just that.

Mariusz Treliński's Traviata had nothing to do with Dumas, Piave or Verdi. It's as if he confused La Dame aux camélias with Lulu.

After over a century, Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande finally received its Norwegian première in a fascinating production by Barbora Horáková Joly.

An exotic Arabian Nights tale with happy ending in Braunschweig. 

In 2010, the première of Reimann's Medea was welcomed with enthusiasm, leading the Staatsoper to relaunch it this season for a second run.

The performance bids for musical purity, but ends up stripped of story and emotion as well. 

The Royal College of Music, Paris Opera Academy and Versailles Baroque Music Centre take on the ambitious task of bringing Rameau opéra-ballet to a London audience.

Ovid’s Metamorphosis (on which the episode of Acis and Galatea is based) set in an Irish pub? Cowboys in place of shepherds and a bartender instead of a nymph?

Ivan Magrì's exemplary technique and strong delivery in his London recital debut left his audience hoping for a return visit to the Rosenblatt series in the imminent future.

Juan Diego Flórez stars as Goethe’s archetypal Romantic poet in Massenet's Werther in Zurich. 

Sorochyntsi Fair was last performed at Berlin's Komische Oper in 1948 by the legendary stage director Walter Felsenstein. Now Barrie Kosky, stage director and intendant, has tried his hand.

Karen Cargill returns to Scottish Opera as Judith in Bluebeard’s Castle in a double bill with The 8th Door, a new opera from Lliam Paterson and Vanishing Point’s Matthew Lenton.

Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande is beautifully realised in Claus Guth's now classic production, revived with a new cast of principals at Oper Frankfurt.

A performance of John Adams' The Gospel According to the Other Mary good enough to convert even the most conservative listener to the Church of New Music.

A largely newly cast revival of The Rake's Progress takes a while to catch fire, but when it does the results are devilishly good.

The evening was dominated by Anna Netrebko, who reprised the role of Tatiana with fresh insights and vocal charisma.  Robin Ticciati led the Met Orchestra to probe a new depth of the score.

Despite a much reduced orchestra and a slightly awkward staging, New Sussex Opera's production of Delius's A Village Romeo and Juliet still gave us the chance to wallow in a glorious late-Romantic score.

The Metropolitan Opera’s now 29-year old production of Aida is still standing and still looking good.

Ermonela Jaho sure likes to put herself (and us) through the emotional wringer on Covent Garden's stage. This time, London finally got to see her as another tragic Puccini heroine: Madama Butterfly.

Mark Lamos' staging is a riot of colour and movement; George Souglides gives us a masterclass in costumery; fine Italian singing illuminates this Norwegian première for Rossini's madcap Il turco in Italia.

Los Angeles Opera's Tales of Hoffmann survives multiple cast changes to look and sound fabulous, but it drags dramatically.

Opera Vlaanderen revives a production of Handel's Agrippina based on American soap operas of the 1980s.

Based on the ancient tragedies by Aeschylus, Oresteia makes a great case for composer Iannis Xenakis’s concept of “total theatre”.

Welsh National Opera brings its 1978 production of Madama Butterfly to Milton Keynes.  

Mohammed Fairouz’s second opera, The New Prince, premiered in Amsterdam, is directed by Lotte de Beer as a colourful, dizzyingly fast-paced  revue.

The Bone Feeder was a thought-provoking deliberation on the history, culture and the nature of belonging.

Anja Harteros shines in Umberto Giordano’s verismo opera, with a top class sound that trumps even Jonas Kaufmann’s comeback.

Poulenc's one-act, one-side-of-a-phone-conversation opera provides a perfect vehicle for Anne-Sophie Duprels to demonstrate her talents as a singing actor.

This production at the San Carlo was an excellent, emotional Lucia di Lammermoor, welcomed with empathy by the audience, like an old companion. 

Frank Martin’s Le Vin herbé is as anti-Wagnerian a work as you could imagine. It is also the odd one out in Welsh National Opera’s “Love’s Poisoned Chalice” spring season.

Mozart's first stage work was written when he was just eleven years old; in this performance by Classical Opera, the composer's youthful writing and touches of humour are brought to life by a solid cast and lively conducting.

Lise Davidsen's Ariadne and Sara Hershkowitz' Zerbinetta shine in the Arctic Philharmonic's slightly lacklustre Ariadne auf Naxos

Benjamin Britten's Death in Venice at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in an outstanding new production by Graham Vick and Donald Runnicles.

Daniele Gatti is the winner of the night, managing to draw an astounding outcome from a far from ideal cast.

The third installment of Géza M. Tóth's staging of the Ring, this Siegfried is visually striking, but it's only a strong cast, and above all Egils Silins' Wanderer, that makes it worth attending.

Annilese Miskimmon's production brings to life the sinister, stormy story of Janáček's masterpiece in an Irish setting.