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Opera Holland Park updates Puccini's setting to the 1960s in a production that does not completely work, but benefits from the strong performance of Elizabeth Llewellyn as its leading lady.

It's not easy to imagine a freezing Parisian attic when you're in the middle of the rolling Dorset countryside in a baking summer, but Dorset Opera's excellent production of Puccini's La bohème is atmospheric enough to do so.

A convincing outing for Leoncavallo's rarely performed tale of adultery, populated by characters who are flesh and blood and are immediately recognisable today.

British Youth Opera revives a forgotten operatic entertainment from the 1960s with flair and professionalism.

Tchaikovsky's High Gothic opera about gambling obsessions is worth seeing for a first class staging, albeit with a mixed musical performance.

In Opera Holland Park's latest foray into obscure verismo, an excellent orchestral performance and high quality singing fails to translate into a compelling drama.

Royal Academy Opera's thoroughly competent Suor Angelica precedes a fabulously entertaining Gianni Schicchi, with a top drawer performance from Haobin Wang in the title role.

An excellent orchestral performance and fine singing from Yvonne Howard and Heather Shipp make Opera Holland Park's Norma well worth seeing, in spite of imperfections.

Wit is the ruling spirit of British Youth Opera’s delectable production of Benjamin Britten and W.H. Auden’s operetta Paul Bunyan, directed by Will Kerley.

Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari is a bit of a strange fish: a recluse, a self-described mystic, and proud enough of his hybrid German-Italian identity that he appended his mother’s maiden name to his own at the age of nineteen.

Opera school productions are designed to provide experience for their students and showcase their talents to an audience sprinkled with casting directors. Clearly, the Guildhall School have decided to extract maximum value from their current production by staging not one opera but three, with different casts and even different orchestral musicians.

With Verdi's centenary coming up, his last opera Falstaff has had more attention than usual, with this production at Opera Holland Park following hot on the heels of Robert Carsen's new production at Covent Garden.

Alfredo Catalani's La Wally is the last of three rarely performed Italian operas from the late 19th century verismo period to feature in Opera Holland Park's 2011 season. Catalani belongs to group of composers whose place in the modern repertoire suffers from the problem of "not being Puccini," the more poignantly since he was born in Puccini's home town of Lucca.

Jonathan Miller's much-loved production of The Mikado for English National Opera is now 25 years old and well remembered. But not, I confess by me. My last experience of Gilbert and Sullivan was on the other side of the curtain, as a sister, cousin or aunt in a school production of HMS Pinafore, an experience sufficiently scarring that I resolved never to go to a G&S opera again.