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The Staatsoper revives a confused production by Hans Neuenfels, under the baton of Thomas Guggeis.

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.

The Temple of Opera has opened its doors to operetta. For the first time the Teatro alla Scala is staging Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus.

The conductor favours measured tempi and unfussy direction, allowing the work to stand mountain-like as an expression of its own intrinsic magnificence.

In an elegant new production by Ivo van Hove, Malin Byström portrays a graceful, erotic Salome and the RCO play with sensuous lyricism under Daniele Gatti.

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

Guth's production is beautiful to look at, but fails to bring out the best in Mozart's drama.

Die Zauberflöte is a work whose outward simplicity masks internal complexity and even contradictions. Mozart’s music is childishly tuneful and yet reaches for the classically sublime; Emmanuel Schikaneder’s libretto alternates a magical quest story out of a German storybook with Masonic claptrap and secondhand Voltaire.

Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal began their collaboration on Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman Without a Shadow) with utopian ambitions. Unfortunately they weren’t the same ones. For Hofmannsthal, this would finally be the opera where his poetry would be illuminated by rather than buried under the music.

Die Zauberflöte besteht in Berlin alle Prüfungen, René Pape begeistert als Sarastro besonders.

Zum Saisonauftakt lädt „Das neue Opernhaus“ zu einer Rarität, der es trotz Obsession und Wahn letztlich an Spannung fehlt, die aber durch eine tolle musikalische Umsetzung besticht.