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From the stately front of The Grange, an impressive moustache looms large, welcoming the audience to a production of Rossini's masterpiece that baffles, confuses and delights the audience.

The battle of the choirs is a thrilling moment in just about any performance of Dutchman, but produces shock and awe in the live acoustics of Budapest's Bartok Bela Concert Hall.

A resounding success at its 1709 première, Handel’s Agrippina gripped the ear and dazzled the eye at the Grange Festival in a hugely entertaining and powerful performance.

Emily Howard's new opera, an Aldeburgh Festival commission, takes an ambitiously modernist approach to a dystopian story of loneliness: a tough, but thought-provoking work. 

Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu stages Puccini’s first great success as an operatic composer, Manon Lescaut with the stage direction of Davide Livermore. 

David Alden’s new production for The Royal Opera, referencing fascist Germany, is drab, but there are musical compensations. 

Willy Decker's enduring production gets smart treatment in a handsome revival.

Classical Opera’s performance of one of Mozart’s earliest operas throbbed with youthful energy; a strong cast brought the humour to life and made up for any weakness in the score.

Harding's grasp of the work's architecture that provides overall coherence. That, combined with the pithy, pulsing core he forges at its heart, makes this performance as engaging as it is polished.

A successful musical production of Lully’s masterpiece with Perm Opera’s MusicAeterna chorus and orchestra, Le Poème Harmonique, and a tremendous French-Russian cast.

Selectively unearthed from current critical editions, this fabulously performed new Hoffmann plumbs the murky depths of its antihero’s psyche.

A staged performance of Handel’s pasticcio opera Oreste shows a strong narrative structure and provides a vehicle for promising young singers.

In the Brokeback Mountain, Wuorinen's  powerfully depicts the stern landscapes, the omnipresent menace, the desolate life of the characters and their awkward interactions.

Musically, a rewarding Forza, but Homoki's staging is best forgotten.

An affirmation of the importance of cultural values in the face of the abyss, or Richard Strauss fiddling while Europe burnt? Tim Albery's production leaves it to us to decide.

Rachel Kelly shines in a mixed production at Lismore Castle. 

A twist on the usual Enlightenment path, this is an admirable production, excellently executed.

As the two sisters, Eleanor Dennis and Kitty Whately ideally complemented and blended with each other.  

Charming and hilarious by turn, this production fields a largely young and Kiwi cast.

Opera Holland Park starts its 2018 season with a bang (and a cough), offering a splendid new production of La traviata. Lauren Fagan is a sensational Violetta, but the production is a real company effort and achievement.

Jeff Clarke's characteristically high-octane style seems made for the sarcastic, hyperactive existential madness that is Candide in this little gem of a production for Iford. 

Despite some dramatic frustrations, at least in Oslo, Jones' production is saved by some truly outstanding singing.

Sigrid T'Hooft's witty Baroque styled *Parnasso in festa* at the Halle Handel Festival could hardly be better in any respect

John Butt’s revisitation of the Handel oratorio Samson at the Halle Handel Festival displayed this treasured work in an illuminating and satisfying light.

The profusion of images and ideas in Frank Castorf's Bavarian Staatsoper production of From the House of the Dead threatens to rob Janáček's opera of its humanity.

An intense intellectual melodrama from Aucoin, with superb playing by members of the LA Opera Orchestra.

Malin Byström convinces as the Feldmarschallin with Adrian Angelico as a strong Octavian, under the baton of Alan Gilbert.

Oper Frankfurt's revival of Richard Jones's production of Billy Budd with a homegrown cast is a devastating combination of powerful music and searing drama.

A post post-modern production of Berenice threw distraction upon distraction at the audience, but was saved by good singing and orchestral playing.

The inventiveness of Ruth Berghaus' classic staging is a clear as ever, even if this revival occasionally loses focus.

You feel you ought not to approve of such directorial extravagance, but catch yourself being drawn into the grand pageant. 

Marco Tullio Giordana's new production at the Maggio Musicale may be static, but musically there's much to enjoy in this rare slice of middle-period Verdi.

In a highly effective stage presentation, the Minnesota Opera tells Jules Massenet’s story of two personalities whose spiritual journeys are like two ships passing in the night.

Strauss' mix of bedroom farce, comedy of manners and bittersweet musing about aging is acted and sung superbly in this revival of Richard Jones' production.

The most talked about new production in the New National Theatre Tokyo’s 20th anniversary season undercuts Beethoven’s idealism.

Vienna State Opera offered a solid production in which precious little gleamed.

Weill’s New York Street Scene is a successful ensemble end of year piece for the students of RCS, ably directed by Alexandra Spencer-Jones, Robert Houssart conducting with the orchestra on top form.

After dipping its toe in the cherry blossom for Glyndebourne's Tour in 2016, Annilese Miskimmon's staging of Puccini's gut-wrencher hits the main festival.

Anja Harteros takes a while to hit her stride in a Don Carlo that doesn't quite gel.

A remarkable Leïla from Desiree Frahn and insightful direction from Michael Gow combine for a precious production of Bizet’s early masterpiece.

Two different variations of the female conditions: one of 1909 and now utterly out-of-date, the second of 1959 much more ut-to-date.

Hasse’s Artaserse in Munich was a pasticcio using music from that work to tell the story of Wilhelmine von Bayreuth and to celebrate of Anja Silja. 

Juan Diego Flórez and Venera Gimadieva charm as the young unlucky couple, and convince with their vocal performances in Wysocka’s production at the Bayerische Staatsoper.

The in-house orchestra played out of its skin under Fabio Luisi.

The Philadelphia Orchestra's superb semi-staged production of Tosca. 

Saint-Saëns' exotic dip into the Bible is given a cool update in Alexandra Liedtke's new production at the Wiener Staatsoper.

Handel’s Semele is presented as a flashback at the Komische Oper in Berlin. 

In a dated production by Hans Neuenfels, conductor Giacomo Sagripanti leads a musically successful Trovatore, where Angela Meade and Anita Rachvelishvili show their vocal brilliance.

Boston Lyric Opera, with the approval of Bernstein's estate, recast Arias and Barcarolles as the further musings of Sam and Dinah. 

George Benjamin and Martin Crimp's second full scale opera is a refinement of the craft showed in Written on Skin – but the lessons are less in love and violince than in power, tension and beauty of the score.