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Gluck sought simplicity; Longborough Festival Opera delivers simplicity with a most enjoyable and engaging production of Orfeo

Grange Park Opera scored a direct hit with a fine production of Janáček's masterpiece, led by a superb performances from Natalya Romaniw and Susan Bullock as Jenůfa and the Kostelnička.

Using Stephen Medcalf’s 2008 staging, this opening night of love and loneliness was a feast for the eyes, a musical triumph and a dramatic tour-de-force that tugged at the heart strings.

Young singers, musicians and designers in this Matrimonio segreto co-produced by the three main opera companies in the Netherlands show that, on the stage and in the pit at least, the future of opera is bright.

Shostakovich’s 1959 operetta Moscow, Cheryomushki (“Paradise Moscow”) is to date one of the most uncomfortable evenings I have ever spent in a theatre, though, I hasten to add, not because of the performance.