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Annabel Arden’s production provides joyous comedy, with vocal and orchestral performances of the very finest.

Opera North’s The Flying Dutchman, directed by Annabel Arden, conjures up frightening storms and links the production to the plight of asylum seekers. 

Strong solo and ensemble singing from a solid cast – with a last minute addition for Act 2 – make for a joyful revival of this much-loved production. 

Strong singing and a punchy orchestral performance makes this latest revival of Donizetti's cheering village rom-com a hit.

This interpretation by co-directors Annabel Arden and Femi Elufowoju Jr was intelligently conceived and brilliantly executed.

Annabel Arden's superb production of Donizetti's classic makes a welcome return for the Glyndebourne Tour in a taut revival led by two excellent principals.

Cast changes and a revival director who sharpens up the action make all the difference to this revival of Rossini's *Barber of Seville* in Glyndebourne's opening weekend. 

Opera North's Aida, directed by Annabel Arden and conducted by Sir Richard Armstrong in Leeds Town Hall, is a welcome radical interpretation in the spirit of the times. 

Two thematically linked, but contrasting short operas are the final component of Opera North's Little Greats season at the Leeds Grand Theatre.

A revival of Arden's 2016 production of Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia is lifted by a strong ensemble cast for Glyndebourne's tour.

Sex and violence bubbles beneath the surface in this near-faultless staging of Carmen. 

A musically excellent and unpretentious performance of Puccini's masterpiece from Cardiff.

Annabel Arden's new production, although decently sung and visually striking, is seriously under-directed, allowing forced acting to blunt the humour.

Opera North's Andrea Chénier at Leeds Grand Theatre directed by Annabel Arden is full of modern relevance and a fine start to the new season

Vladimir Jurowski is a wily programmer. Pairing a concert performance of Rachmaninov's The Miserly Knight with extracts from Das Rheingold seemed a shrewd move.

A new collaboration between Aldeburgh Music, Opera North and The Royal Opera produced mixed results: while Francisco Coll's Café Kafka was a characterful piece which combined humour with darker undertones, Elspeth Brooke's The Commission proved less successful.

A German Requiem and two German composers sounds like your standard concert menu, but this concert was an interesting juxtaposition of two very different halves, the first filled by German composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s little-heard Ecclesiastical Action, and the second by the much-loved, much-performed German Requiem by Brahms.

You can’t accuse Vladimir Jurowski of lacking ambition. This LPO concert of his, featuring artfully sequenced works by Beethoven, Schoenberg and Nono, was dedicated “to all the people in the world who are still suffering injustice”.

Si la direction musicale de Paolo Carignani, l'orchestre et les chœurs impressionnent, l'ensemble de la production est plombé par une mise en scène caricaturale, tandis que la distribution laisse une impression mitigée.

Si le dispositif semi-scénique d'Annabel Arden convainc à moitié, la direction musicale et la distribution (avec Sunyoung Seo dans le rôle-titre) valent le détour.