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Charles Villiers Stanford's The Travelling Companion is performed at Cadogan Hall by New Sussex Opera. 

In Anna Russell's wittily deadpan analysis of Wagner's Ring cycle, she describes Wotan as “the head god” – pausing for dramatic effect before adding “and he's a crashing bore too.”

Mahler's epic setting of the final scene from Goethe's Faust is so demanding of musical resources that any performance is a special occasion: what better work to conclude the Orchestra Of Opera North's triumphant 2015-2016 season? 

Sir Thomas Allen and Robert Murray give a compelling performance as the two soldiers in Britten's War Requiem. 

Smetana's The Bartered Bride by Opera North at Leeds Grand Theatre directed by Daniel Slater is a confident revival of an old success. 

Così fan tutte in a 1950s carnival setting. Visually spectacular, and with plenty of laughs. Not everything works, but still worth seeing, especially for Roderick Williams' spivvy Don Alfonso.

What to do with a “classic revival” that has, in the main, met the critics’ eye of approval? That was the question facing Natascha Metherell, the revival director of ENO’s production of La bohème, which opened this week at the Coliseum. The revival was in fact deftly handled: a production which remained faithful to Miller’s original vision, with honest, rather than over-egged, sentimentality.

Of all the 'time arts', music is arguably best placed to convey impermanence. Frikki Walker's excellent pre-concert talk – the most philosophical I've experienced at an RSNO Friday evening concert – set this train of thought in motion.

What’s the connection between Harry Potter and Mozart? Fiona Shaw is perhaps best known these days as the boy wizard’s Aunt Petunia – or our greatest classical actress for those with longer memories.

Several audience members didn't bother to return after the interval, and there were a few walkouts even before that. It seems Christopher Alden's darkly brilliant new production isn't for everybody. But those of us who stuck it out for the full three hours were rewarded with a reminder that beneath the surface of the Shakespeare-based fairy fable lurk some disquieting truths.

"Intermezzo" has submitted an excellent and comprehensive review of the opening night of this classy new production, but I was so shocked to hear booing from neighbouring seats that perhaps I might be permitted to add this view from a relative opera novice? I've not seen this opera before, or even the Shakespeare play, so although I had nothing to compare it with, I also had nothing to miss in th