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The audience for The Met's first performance of La fanciulla del West this season arrived loaded for bear. Not only were they disappointed that Jonas Kaufmann was not singing (he's slated for shows starting 17th October), but their disappointment was heightened by the fact that tenor Yusif Eyvazov was singing.

The Met brought back a 20-year-old traditional production of Simon Boccanegra with a starry cast led by James Levine.

A relative rarity by Verdi is given an outing at the Sydney Opera House, with excellent performances let down by a disappointing staging. 

In Zurich, a dazzling production of Puccini's great Turandot gives us the stuff of torment, torture and all the other idiosyncracies of love at the executuve level.

A rich showcase of bel canto Romantic tragedy, this renewal of the Giancarlo del Monaco production made a vehicle for insights into jealousy, conscience, and deviousness “on a Royal scale”.

​In each case, you know the murder is coming. In each case the music is explosive and closes the opera: there is nothing left to say except Canio's simple words: "La commedia è finita.

Read our review of Giancarlo del Monaco's production of Puccini's La Fanciulla del West in its 2011 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.

Read our review of Giancarlo del Monaco's production of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra in its 2010 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.

La producción de Las golondrinas de Giancarlo del Monaco vuelve a llevar al Teatro de la Zarzuela toda la magia del circo.

La soprano Ainhoa Arteta lidera el reparto de La vida breve y encarna a una inolvidable Salud desgarrada por la obsesión enfermiza de una pasión autodestructiva.  

La sorprendente nueva versión de La Tempranica del Teatro de la Zarzuela peca de pretenciosa en un estreno desdibujado por la obligación de dividir el programa que también incluía La Vida Breve de Falla.

Fin de l’ère Tobias Richter au Grand Théâtre de Genève. Pour clôturer cette décennie : un bal masqué de belle tenue musicale mais qui pâtit d’une mise en scène et de décors plus que ternes.

El director musical de La Zarzuela, Óliver Díaz, destaca con su excelente trabajo en una producción de la obra de Usandizaga oscura pero sin magia.