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When done as well as this, a "concert staging" is not oxymoronic, but a precise term for a valuable mode of presentation.

Ivor Bolton and David McVicar have teamed up to create an unapologetically Brittenian Gloriana, with Anna Caterina Antonacci at the top of a great cast

Of the various themes that make up Britten’s Gloriana, written to celebrate the coronation in 1953 and being given a rare outing at Covent Garden to mark the work’s 60th anniversary and Britten’s 100th, the most effective by far is a sort of operatic expansion of Shakespeare’s line “uneasy lies the head that wears the crown”.

British director Richard Jones is well known for his bold, modern and often controversial takes on operatic repertoire. So I was very curious to see what surprising ideas he would come up with in directing Britten’s rarely performed opera Gloriana, originally composed in honour of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.