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Violetta Valéry was Armenian soprano Hrachuhí Bassénz, who made a strong impression on the audience, certainly by the end.

Paula Sides as Donna Anna has an appealing sound throughout her range, a hint of spinto power, and gave the vocal performance of the night.

Any occasion to see Donizetti's first big success is to be welcomed. The Longborough Festival's new production of Anna Bolena gives us a Tudor court in terror of a brutish, Henry VIII as he seeks to supplant Anne Boleyn with Jane Seymour.

A thoroughly satisfying, entertaining production of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte from Irish National Opera. Anna Devin delivers a delightful Pamina and Nick Pritchard a convincing Tamino. 

Osborn absolutely lives the part; he negotiated formidable heights, intricate passage work and the sheer volume of notes with style and clarity as well as colour and nuance. 

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.

Without glitz, extravagance or the need to be expressly shocking, Robert Carsen's new production of Wozzeck at the Theater an der Wien is exceptional.

Director Jo Davies' staging of Mozart’s dramma giocoso for Nederlandse Reisopera is a high-spirited  affair packed with humour, where the emphasis is decidedly more on giocoso than on the dramma.

Laughter is indeed the best medicine. As we try and make sense of the continuing political fallout post EU referendum, the CBSO offered the perfect prescription in the ample form of Verdi's Falstaff.

“If music be the food of love, play on, give me excess of it.” There was certainly plenty of Shakespeare-inspired music on the bill for the London Philharmonic Orchestra's celebration of The Bard. 

Though certainly not the most heartwarming of tales this Christmas season, this is a production one shouldn’t miss.

If “all the world’s a jest”, as Sir John Falstaff claims at the end of Verdi’s final operatic masterpiece, then we need players – and directors – with a sense of frivolity. Robert Carsen truly delivers. 

The Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra gives a patrician performance of Verdi’s Macbeth and Scott Hendricks is riveting in Andrea Breth’s claustrophobic exploration of oppression and derangement.

The Tenth Anniversary of the Royal Opera House’s Jette Parker Young Artists Scheme is a landmark of no small size. This summer performance brought back some of the best singers it has produced for a semi-staged rendition of Rossini’s one-act 1825 opera Il Viaggio a Reims. It was a celebratory display of virtuoso held together with a generous dose of self-indulgence.

In the end, the big man gets the last laugh. Come to think of it, he also gets the first laugh, but for different reasons: you sense that Verdi steadily grew to love Falstaff in the course of writing the opera, as he turns from a coarse buffoon into a maligned old man and, eventually, into the spirit of laughter itself.

Ever since the Royal Opera House announced that two performances of its summer revival of Jonathan Kent's production of Tosca would feature an all-star cast, opera lovers all over the world have been desperately trying to get their hands on a golden ticket.

A split-level stage featuring an ornate stairwell and scaffolding was the setting for this the tenth Jette Parker Young Artists’ Summer Performance. Entitled ‘Veneziana’, the specially compiled programme embodied the visions of Venice dreamt by Rossini, Donizetti, Britten and Offenbach in six sets of Opera Scenes.

Mit einer verwunschenen Inszenierung zieht Damiano Michielettos das Publikum im Theater an der Wien einmal mehr in seinen Bann.

Après Montpellier et presque en même temps que Lille, l'Opéra de Lyon offre une version d'Idoménée de Mozart. Pouvoir, amour, violence, dette, divinité, pardon et abdication donnent un livret qui n'est pas des plus simples et que la mise en scène de Martin Kušej n'aide pas à comprendre...