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Donatienne Michel-Dansac is great in the lead at the Ostrava Days new music festival, leering, boasting and swaggering convincingly as the former US President. 

Comprised of some 60 musicians from 16 countries, the Ostrava New Orchestra paint pictures of prisons and caves, gardens and machines, in works by students and 20th-century masters.

Despite the fact that few (if any) in the audience could understand ancient Greek, the emotions of the characters, and particularly the desperation of Mr Falk's Kassandra, came through with astonishing intensity.

The third night of New Opera Days Ostrava took place in the Antonín Dvořák Theatre and consisted of a double bill of two hour-long operas.

The first night having taken place on the outskirts of town in the 'Coal Mine Bathrooms', I was curious as to where I'd land on the second night of New Opera Days Ostrava. This time I found myself at Cooltour, a more conventional theater above a coffeeshop/bookstore complete with outdoor patio from which the smell of barbecue occasionally wafted.

NODO opens with Ligeti's Aventures and Nouvelle Aventures in the old bathrooms of Coal Mine Hlubina, followed by the world première of Mr Kotík's William William in the hall upstairs. 

Spirits ran high and the music captivated record crowds at this year's Ostrava Days New and experimental Music Festival.

A round-up report from the four-day festival of new opera in Ostrava; After four nights of living on the edge, polished, finished pieces will never seem as interesting again.