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Mezzo-soprano Tara Erraught anchors a fluid and appealingly staged new production of Kevin Puts' penny dreadful.

Tara Erraught stars as the eponymous heroine with Anna Devin as her nemesis Elizabeth I in Donizetti's Maria Stuarda, but Tom Creed's modern update fails to convince at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin. 

Excellent soloists, inventive sets and fine direction from Sheil and Phelan makes for an entertaining Cenerentola at the Bord Gais Energy Theatre Dublin. 

Delights both sugary and strange in this revival of La Cenerentola by Welsh National Opera.

Axel Ranisch's production makes heavy use of film to tell a comic story of a medieval knight in love.

Instead of telling a story of spiritual enlightenment and ultimate redemption through faith, Pierre Audi's reading is bereft of mystery and magic.

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

A wonderful ful-filled caper by the Irish National Opera of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro with Erraught as Susanna and Miskelly as Cherubino really impressing. 

Barrie Kosky’s clever direction enlivens a Strauss rarity at the Bayerische Staatsoper but the minimalist stage setting sinks HMS Schweigsame Frau.

Bartlett Sher's production of The Tales of Hoffmann, revived at The Met, takes a Kafka-esque, surreal view of the opera.

Tara Erraught offered a programme that combined well-known arias with obscure German Lieder, showing off a voice strong in technique and colour that left the audience wanting more.

Roddy Doyle's new translation is ingenious more often than incongruous; John Molloy's Leporello steals the show in the Opera Theatre's Don Giovanni.

Stellar singing and excellent acting makes this a brilliantly satisfying and amusing 1970s take on Rossini's classic The Barber of Seville. 

A decadent romantic programme of Wagner and Mahler, where Nathalie Stutzmann delivered a scintillating performance particularly in Wagner's Prelude.

Despite the starriest of casts the première of Miroslav Srnka's double opera South Pole falls behind the expectations created by the media hype, but is celebrated by the audience.

A visually striking production of Rossini's La Cenerentola for Washington National Opera.

An opening night of Così fan tutte in Munich in which Gaëlle Arquez and Marina Rebeka as the two sisters take the honours. 

The Bayerische Staatsoper's production of Hänsel und Gretel is successful both musically and dramatically, but don't come expecting a charming fairy tale: This eerie staging is not for the very young or the faint of heart.

Matrimony, divorce, Germany's next top model and superb voices - this Munich production promises an exciting evening.

A feast of Strauss and Elgar delights all in Prom 19, featuring Vasily Petrenko, Inger Dam-Jensen, and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

Glyndebourne’s annual away day from Lewes to the heaving metropolis is always a highlight of the Proms season, but this year’s visit was more hotly anticipated than usual. 

Iain Bell’s new opera A Harlot’s Progress, premièred at the Theater an der Wien this month, has much going for it. Its chances for making it into modern repertory are good – if people can handle the depressing plot.

What has made Rossini and his librettist Jacopo Ferretti’s take on Cinderella survive on the opera stage for almost 200 years now is not only the universal archetype of the downtrodden girl who is redeemed by Prince Charming, nor its enchanting music: the absence of fairy-tale symbols like the pumpkin carriage and the glass shoe (barefoot ladies would have been too outrageous a sight on an Italian

Shortly after Rossini's success with The Barber of Seville came La Cenerentola, a reworking of the Cinderella fairy tale, but with a little less magic, and a lot more worldly comedy. It was an instant success and further established the 25-year-old Rossini as one of the greatest Italian opera composers of his day.

The pairing of Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges (“The Child and the Spells”) with Zemlinsky’s Der Zwerg (“The Dwarf”) is an interesting juxtaposition.

La metteuse en scène Mariame Clément s'attaque à l'opéra de Massenet avec plus ou moins de bonheur, dans une production qui ne manque pas de ressources musicales.

Die selten aufgeführte Strauss-Oper wird im Nationaltheater mit einer Traum-Besetzung wiederaufgenommen.

Dieter Dorns 1997er Inszenierung bietet gute Unterhaltung, kann aber mit dem Starensemble um Diana Damrau nicht mithalten.

Viel Wirbeln und Drehen in Reinhard von der Thannens Salzburger Faust-Inszenierung: Sein weißes Bühnenbild verschmilzt mit den nuancenreichen Orchesterklängen unter der Leitung von Alejo Pérez. 

Mit der Sache Makropulos setzt die bayerische Staatsoper gleich zum Beginn der Münchner Opernfestspiele einen überwältigenden Akzent – dank Nadja Michael.