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Richard Wagner, reviewing La Reine de Chypre for the Dresden Abend-Zeitung, praised Halévy's opera as “decidedly the best that has appeared on the Opéra's boards since Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots”. It's impossible not to agree. 

Glyndebourne's annual performance at the Proms proves dramatically untraditional but musically solid.

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

Grange Park’s Samson et Dalila doesn’t hit the bull’s eye, but it’s well worth the visit for a decent all-round staging of an unfamiliar work, an excellent rendering of its sumptuous score and for a thrilling piece of singing by Carl Tanner.

James Gaffigan, aided by a fine cast of soloists led by the full-blooded Rigoletto of Dimitri Platanias, demonstrated that Verdi's powerfully dramatic music does not need staging to keep the audience captivated.

A classical setting and a varying degree of vocal and dramatic success for Mozart's miraculous score to Le nozze di Figaro.

David McVicar's production of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro returns for its sixth revival at the Royal Opera House, the refinement of the production matched, almost at all times, by the performances. 

With programming in the major opera houses dominated by Verdi and Wagner, bel canto fans have had a slightly thin time of it this year (Covent Garden’s La donna del lago is an exception). But others are filling some of the gaps, with Rossini’s Maometto II coming up at Garsington and Stephen Langridge’s production of Bellini’s I Puritani, which opened at Grange Park last night.

A trip to the opera at Garsington in its new, idyllic setting at Wormsley Estate, Buckinghamshire, is a fine treat even in the rain. And with a Don Giovanni production which, despite plenty of oddities, is light-hearted and often witty, an excellent evening of high-class entertainment is guaranteed.

Le Théâtre des Champs-Élysées nous a permis de découvrir la Reine de Chypre, opéra oublié de Fromental Halévy, avec à l'affiche Hervé Niquet et Véronique Gens. Une oeuvre tout finesse et d'une grande efficacité dramatique.

Giuseppe Verdis Aida hält alles bereit, was man für eine bombastische Operninszenierung braucht. Doch was, wenn man einfach auf den ganzen Pomp verzichtet und eine ganz schlichte Inszenierung wählt?