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Donizetti's La Fille du régiment brings much needed joy to the Teatro Real, with Javier Camarena's astonishing voice and Aleksandra Kurzak's unapologetic tomboy mesmerising the audience.

For frothy entertainment, Pelly’s Fille is harmless fun, even if it descends into pantomime cliché. Juan Diego Flórez’s Tonio ensures it remains a hot ticket and Patrizia Ciofi’s Marie is a bundle of energy.

Chicks dig the high notes. The enduring popularity of Donizetti’s The Daughter of the Regiment seems to indicate as much. The plot is silly (even by opera’s standards) and much of the music is not as memorable as some of Donizetti’s more popular works.

I once heard a lecture by Gérard Mortier, then head of the Paris Opera, contrasting the twin operatic traditions starting from Monteverdi's serious and affecting dramma per musica and the lavish court entertainments of Lully. A couple of centuries on, there's no need to ask the side of the fence on which Massenet's Cendrillon falls.

Puértolas y Camarena protagonizaron una velada que fue de alegría y bálsamo para los amantes del bel canto del Liceu de Barcelona. La fille du régiment, con un reparto compensado y de altos vuelos, hizo las delicias del público que tenía ganas de una de las obras de Donizetti que más momentos estelares ha dado en los últimos años en el coliseo barcelonés.

Una audiencia de tres mil personas, emocionada y transfigurada ante la grandeza de un Mahler servido de forma espléndida

De Gluck à Massenet, on plonge avec délice dans l’histoire de l’opéra français.